Abstract:
The state of California in the United States recently passed a new law to further strengthen the disclosure requirements for political advertisements by social media influencers. According to the new law, if Internet celebrities or other online content creators charge fees to publish politically related content but fail to disclose advertising or payment relationships as required, regulatory authorities can impose a fine of up to $5,000 per violation. The relevant personnel may also be handed over to law enforcement agencies and face misdemeanor charges.
The law, numbered AB 1130, was signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. The core change of the new law is not that it requires Internet celebrities to disclose political advertisements for the first time, but that it adds clear penalties to the original disclosure obligations for the first time.
California has previously required influencers who post state or local election-related content through social media to disclose if they have been paid by a campaign or other political organization. However, there is an obvious problem with the original law: although it stipulates disclosure obligations, it does not set clear fines or criminal penalties for non-disclosure, so actual enforcement is limited.
Under the new law, regulators can now impose fines of up to $5,000 per violation. If the regulatory agency believes that the relevant conduct may constitute a crime, it can also refer the case to law enforcement agencies, and the Internet celebrity involved may face misdemeanor charges.
Before the introduction of this legislation, there were already cases involving political promotion by internet celebrities in the California gubernatorial race. Billionaire Tom Steyer, who ran in California’s Democratic primary for governor earlier this year, paid dozens of influencers to promote his campaign online. Many of them reportedly did not disclose that they had received campaign payments when they initially posted the content.
Steyer ultimately did not win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, but the incident drew further attention to the issue of politicians and campaigns using influencers to spread political messages. Traditional political ads usually clearly indicate the advertiser and the payment relationship, while the personalized content posted by social media influencers may look more like the opinions or recommendations of ordinary users. Therefore, whether the payment relationship is disclosed will directly affect the audience's judgment of the nature of the content.
The sponsor of the new law, Democratic California Representative Mark Berman, said that after studying the implementation of the current law, he realized that there was a certain degree of ambiguity in the specific application and implementation of relevant regulations, so he promoted the amendment of the law to clarify exactly what measures regulatory agencies can take.
Newsom’s signing of AB 1130 is also part of a series of election-related bills he has recently signed. The governor's office said the measures are intended to reduce the risk of potential election interference, and some of the policy context involves U.S. President Donald Trump and political influence at the federal level.
For political content on social media platforms, the new law means influencers will need to more clearly distinguish between personal expression and paid political promotion. If a content creator accepts payment from a candidate, campaign committee, or other political organization and posts relevant political content on his or her own social media account, it may no longer be sufficient to publish the content itself. California law requires disclosure of the relevant financial relationship.
This change also further expands the scope of regulation of social media political advertising in US states. Texas also currently requires disclosure of paid political content, and other states are considering similar rules. However, states are not exactly alike in terms of the scope of disclosure, who it applies to, and the penalties for noncompliance.
For the internet celebrity economy, political content is becoming an increasingly important business area. On the one hand, political campaign teams can use Internet celebrities to reach young audiences that are difficult to reach with traditional TV advertisements; on the other hand, Internet celebrities' personal identities and fan relationships may also make paid political content look more similar to ordinary personal opinions. Therefore, how to let the audience clearly know whether there is a payment relationship behind the content has become the focus of relevant supervision.
AB 1130 does not prohibit influencers from posting political content, nor does it prohibit campaigns from paying content creators, but it does require disclosure when a paid political promotion relationship exists. With this increase in fines and potential criminal liability, California's originally broad disclosure requirements will have a clearer enforcement mechanism.
After the implementation of the new law, Internet celebrities, campaign teams and related political organizations will need to pay more attention to the issue of advertising identification and payment relationship disclosure of social media content. For content creators who violate the regulations, fines of up to $5,000 for a single violation and possible misdemeanor proceedings will put past “non-disclosure” behavior that may have lacked practical consequences at more immediate legal risk.
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