according to the Texas Tribune<\/a>. The payments weren\u2019t clearly disclosed in either case.<\/p>\nSteyer, a Democratic billionaire who spent more than $215 million of his own money on his unsuccessful bid for governor, took fire from rivals for paying content creators. He wasn\u2019t the only contender in the race paying influencers, but he faced much of the blowback because he had already been accused of trying to buy the election for having poured much of his personal fortune into his campaign. Many of the creators who worked with Steyer\u2019s campaign disclosed that they were paid, but the state\u2019s campaign finance watchdog is investigating several other instances in which creators allegedly didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
There are no federal disclosure rules<\/p>\n
Sen. Adam Schiff of California introduced federal legislation last month, but it hasn\u2019t received a vote yet. Some outside groups are urging the Federal Election Commission to pass its own rule.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s law requiring disclosure, passed in 2023, is difficult to enforce. The state\u2019s campaign watchdog can seek a court order compelling an influencer to disclose that they were paid, but that can take months.<\/p>\n
That prompted Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) to write a new bill to penalize content creators and political committees if the creator fails to state they were compensated. The bill would give the state\u2019s Fair Political Practices Commission the power to fine influencers and committees if they are found to have violated the law, allowing the commission to bypass the court process. They could face fines of up to $5,000 per violation, according to the commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cVoters should have a right to know whether or not campaigns are paying for the messaging that they\u2019re seeing,\u201d Berman said.<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 campaign watchdog passed a rule in 2024 requiring content creators to include disclaimers when they are paid for political advertisements, and the New York Legislature is considering a similar requirement. Other disclosure bills failed in recent years in Utah and Georgia.<\/p>\n
Influencer says his ad had an impact<\/p>\n
Smith, the L.A. influencer, hadn\u2019t committed to a candidate for governor when a trusted friend told him to look into Steyer. That friend had been paid to post about Steyer.<\/p>\n
Smith liked Steyer\u2019s promise to increase taxes on billionaires and his refusal to accept donations from corporate political action committees.<\/p>\n
He ended up doing two paid ads, both of which included compensation disclaimers that the Steyer campaign told him were a requirement. <\/p>\n
Smith wouldn\u2019t say exactly how much the campaign paid him, but he said it was in the thousands of dollars. He thinks the posts had an effect on his followers, with only a few detractors objecting. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey kind of trust my voice,\u201d he said of his audience. \u201cThey knew that if I\u2019m saying it, it\u2019s at least something they should look into.\u201d<\/p>\n
Creators respond to proposed policy changes<\/p>\n
Dustin Torreverde, a content creator in Southern California who hasn\u2019t been paid by a political campaign for social media posts, said it\u2019s important for influencers to be transparent with their audiences. But the bill could pose an unfair burden on creators who are just trying to make a living, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of us are very small creators,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if we were to get penalized and we have to get lawyers, stuff like that, it\u2019s going to be very difficult for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adina Flores, a libertarian content creator in Northern California who votes for both parties, said influencers should have to disclose if they are paid and that she generally supports penalties. She worries some people may take money to post political content without doing a \u201cdeep dive into the candidate to make sure that\u2019s somebody they should support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saurav Ghosh, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on protecting American democracy, hopes disclosure requirements passed by states will lead to federal rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cTransparency is one of the most important pillars of our election system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Austin writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Weeks before voting ended in California\u2019s primary for governor, Los Angeles-based influencer Shaka Smith took to Instagram to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3653,7,9,8,3705,170402,111345,170403,17656,943,40710,592,170401,1573,225,38107,564],"class_list":["post-428045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-bill","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-campaign","tag-campaign-finance-watchdog","tag-content-creator","tag-democratic-billionaire","tag-disclaimer","tag-governor","tag-influencer","tag-people","tag-small-creator","tag-smith","tag-state","tag-steyer","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}