FTC to Crack Down on Paid Celebrity Posts That Aren’t Clear Ads

Re:FTC to Crack Down on Paid Celebrity Posts That Aren’t Cle... by morgante on Friday August 05, 2016 @12:16PM (#12233467)

I think the murkiness of cases like this is that it's not clear that the speech is purely commercial. As someone mentioned elsewhere, it seems somewhat analogous to product placements in rap songs. There's clearly some commercial activity going on, but the root activity is also artistic—rappers would rap even if they didn't get paid for it, and celebrities would maintain social accounts even if they couldn't do product placements there.

FDA labeling is generally fine, but would we force an artist doing a large edible art installation to slap nutrition labels on it?

Personally, I don't really see what the big deal is. Consumers shouldn't be naive enough to buy something just because a celebrity likes it, but then again I've never understood the appeal of celebrities in the first place.

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Re:FTC to Crack Down on Paid Celebrity Posts That Aren’t Cle... by Paul-ish on Friday August 05, 2016 @01:46PM (#12234324)

There is hubris in thinking you are immune to marketing, and if anything it makes you more vulnerable to it.

Celebrity isn't so easily defined. What if Bruce Schneier, who you could consider a "celebrity" of sorts in the security community, started (subtly) promoting Signal Messenger in his tweets and blog posts. Wouldn't you want to know if he was being paid to do that?

This is essentially what is happening when PewDiePie promoted a video game.

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