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posted by martyb on Friday September 10 2021, @03:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the an-ad-by-any-other-name... dept.

Paid influencers must label posts as ads, German court rules:

BERLIN, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Social media influencers who receive money from companies to promote products must clearly label such posts as advertisements, a top German court ruled on Thursday.

If the influencers are not paid, they can show products without the advertising label, the Federal Court of Justice ruled in the cases of three influencers on Facebook's (FB.O) social media site Instagram.

Influencers with thousands of followers can earn large fees from companies to promotes a product on Instagram.


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  • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday September 10 2021, @04:49PM (4 children)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Friday September 10 2021, @04:49PM (#1176696)

    Or did anyone believe those influenza really think that some crap is the best thing since sliced bread?

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday September 10 2021, @05:01PM

      by isostatic (365) on Friday September 10 2021, @05:01PM (#1176709) Journal

      Or did anyone believe those influenza really think that some crap is the best thing since sliced bread?

      Yes, many people do

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 10 2021, @05:23PM (2 children)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday September 10 2021, @05:23PM (#1176725) Journal

      It doesn't really matter if anyone believes it or not, we have laws against advertisements that are not disclosed as such.

      And yes, even here in the good old fraud-curious US! [ftc.gov]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @07:38PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @07:38PM (#1176767)

        Yup, as long as it isn't in a movie, you have to disclose it.

        Wait, what?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkA2a4_tNOs [youtube.com]

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 10 2021, @08:02PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday September 10 2021, @08:02PM (#1176775) Journal

          "Promotional consideration provided by X" in the credits is the disclosure.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @05:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @05:53PM (#1176739)

    In Germany, these folks were required to label *all* their posts as advertisements before this ruling. This ruling excludes some of their posts from the labeling requirement.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @07:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @07:23PM (#1176756)

      Fair enough.

      If Fraulein Madchen is seductively spruiking a line of clothing, surely the nudes are exempt.

  • (Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday September 10 2021, @06:48PM (1 child)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Friday September 10 2021, @06:48PM (#1176749)

    Youtube goes dark in Germany?

    Cuz most reviewers don't pay for the shit they review.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Ingar on Saturday September 11 2021, @08:58AM

      by Ingar (801) on Saturday September 11 2021, @08:58AM (#1176919) Homepage

      Now someone has to point out politicians are influencers.

  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:54PM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:54PM (#1177025)

    The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK have been expecting this sort of labelling for a while (see example report from 2014 [asa.org.uk]), but have been pursuing a 'softly-softly', coercive approach. It's had coverage They've recently started naming and shaming [bbc.co.uk] influencers who aren't clearly labelling their paid-for content as ads, while threatening the stick of fines in the future.

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