As influencers rise in politics, some call for tighter regulations on payments

WASHINGTON- During the 2024 elections, hundreds of social media influencers were accredited for the first time to attend the Democratic and Republican conventions. They have been invited to parties at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, political rallies in Texas and White House events by the Biden and Trump administrations.

The role of influencers is growing as candidates and groups across the political spectrum view their social media feeds and personas as a gateway to younger audiences and harder-to-reach groups of voters.

“You have this feeling of authenticity, like a friend is talking to you,” said Emma Briant, a professor at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society at the University of Notre Dame who studies propaganda.

That’s exactly what campaigns hope to leverage when they partner with influencers, she said.

But the nature of that partnership was called into question in California’s hotly contested gubernatorial race after it emerged that a number of content creators — some with millions of followers, others with just a handful — had received payments from Democratic candidate Tom Steyer’s campaign and failed to disclose that they had been paid to create those posts.

Some popular content creators felt the need to explain themselves to their audience. Others wonder how common these under-the-table payments might be, since there are no disclosure requirements for paid content at the federal level and few jurisdictions have rules requiring it.

Some campaign finance advocates worry that voters are increasingly being influenced by social media posts that they are unaware are sponsored.

“The problem is it doesn’t look like an ad,” said Saurav Ghosh, a former enforcement attorney at the Federal Election Commission. “This eventually gets people to a point where they are no longer skeptical and unable to differentiate between what is voluntary and where the influencer is acting as a paid spokesperson.”

Ghosh is now director of campaign finance reform at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, which filed a petition asking the FEC to require disclaimers on paid content created by influencers.

According to the Pew Research Center, about one in five Americans reported regularly receiving news from social media influencers in 2024, and that number was almost double for young adults ages 18 to 29.

Working with social media creators can be an easy way for candidates to try to boost their image, especially with younger audiences.

“If they don’t have big personalities, maybe associating with influencers who seem cool and fun can make you seem cool and fun as well through association,” said Link Lauren, a political influencer and podcaster who served as a communications adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign.

California is one of the few places that requires disclosure of sponsored social media posts, but the 2023 law that created those rules hadn’t been given much effort before the issue came up in this contest through a series of dueling complaints with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. The commission has yet to rule on the various accusations.

Under the law, influencers are required to disclose that a post was sponsored and who paid for it. Political groups are required to inform paid creators of this requirement.

Even if the commission finds violations, the sanctions are not particularly severe.

Violation of the law does not result in any civil, criminal or administrative sanction. The FPPC can take suspected violators to court and ask a judge to force them to comply. And violations can be punished with a fine of up to $5,000 per case.

Influencers reporting influencers

In the race for governor, the issue of compliance was raised, of course, by two influencers.

Beatrice Gomberg has amassed over 180,000 followers on TikTok, where she posts under the handle antiplasticlady. Her side hustle creating non-plastic cups and lunch boxes for children became her main job after she lost her job in human resources at Macy’s during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I started using social media because I didn’t want to hire a marketing company,” Gomberg said.

Gomberg’s messages were initially largely focused on plastic-related research, but became increasingly political over time. When the campaigns put out a call for influencers to meet the candidates, Gomberg responded.

She interviewed Katie Porter, she met Xavier Becerra. And it was at a Becerra event in April that she met Kaitlyn Hennessy, another policy-focused influencer.

They discovered that the world of online influencers can be isolating. “We look in front of our phones,” Hennessy said. “You don’t want to see our screen time.”

Scrolling through social media posts about the gubernatorial race, they found a cause to unite them.

They continued to see videos posted by social media accounts espousing similar messages in support of Tom Steyer. Hennessy first wondered if they were actually created by artificial intelligence.

They found that the posts appeared to have been created by a network of women who, in some cases, had created several different profiles to promote a variety of products.

They reviewed Steyer’s campaign disclosures and found that the campaign listed payments made to several high-profile influencers — including one with the handle Zay Dante, with 1.8 million followers on TikTok — who had not disclosed creating paid content for the campaign.

Both men filed a lawsuit outlining their allegations, which the Steyer campaign called “baseless.”

Following their complaint, Steyer defended the use of paid influencers in his campaign, writing on Substack that his campaign believed content creators should be paid for their work and that the campaign had been transparent about disclosing these payments.

In another post, influencer Carlos Eduardo Espina said he received $400,000 for work he did for the Steyer campaign. Espina, who has more than 14 million followers on TikTok, is an advisor to the campaign, which was announced publicly.

“You will never see anything on my channels that I don’t believe in, or that I think goes against the best interests of my community. No one buys my opinion. But I also think it’s fair to be compensated for my work,” he wrote on Substack.

Not everyone is ready to accept payment for publications.

Lauren, the influencer who advised Kennedy’s campaign, said that while he doesn’t blame other influencers for accepting sponsorship, he chooses not to.

“A passive bystander might think you really believe it,” he said. “I have a strong connection with my audience. I truly consider them my family.”

Lauren said he supports disclosure requirements.

Briant, the propaganda researcher, said she was concerned about the possibility that foreign actors might try to influence Americans through paid publications.

In 2024, for example, federal prosecutors filed an indictment alleging that Russian state media employees paid nearly $10 million to a Tennessee company that paid popular right-wing social media influencers to unwittingly produce pro-Russian content.

Briant said she believes the only way to counteract increased manipulation by social media influencers is to impose tough penalties when paid content is not disclosed.

“At the end of the day, it’s the Wild West right now if there are no repercussions if we don’t do this,” she said.