Facebook says it will allow influencers to produce sponsored content for US politicians and political campaigns, if the posts are clearly identified as ads
Bloomberg's bad memes might just be the beginning — Facebook will allow influencers to produce sponsored content for political campaigns …
The VergeMakena Kelly
Context & Ripple Effects
The move formalizes what Michael Bloomberg's presidential campaign was already doing: paying meme accounts to post as if organically. By opening the paid-partnership tool to politicians, Facebook converts that workaround into a product feature — the only requirement being that posts carry an ad label.
US politicians and campaigns gain a new paid channel through influencers' existing audiences, with Bloomberg's operation the immediate template and beneficiary.
Second-order effects
Criticism that ad labels are easy to miss forces Facebook toward additional safeguards, per its own consideration of transparency rules for campaign-staffer posts.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, political advertising on the platform oscillates between restriction and reopening — Facebook lifted its post-election political ad ban a year later — leaving disclosure labels as the primary gate rather than substantive review.
The trend: Political persuasion is migrating into creator-economy formats, where platform disclosure labels rather than editorial or regulatory review do the policing.
Another important thing: These sponsored posts won't be filed n Facebook's political Ad Library unless the poster pays to boost them. https://www.theverge.com/...
Posts that are created by influencers who are paid to create sponsored content will not be placed in Facebook's political Ad Library, @kellymakena reports - one exception is that they will be put in the Library if the creator pays to boost their posts https://www.theverge.com/...
Because the posts from influencers are branded content, not traditional ads run through FB's ad platform, Sponsored political content will not be placed in Facebook's political Ad Library unless the creator pays to boost their posts.
NEW: Facebook will allow influencers to partner with political campaigns for sponsored posts. There weren't any rules on this, because it wasn't really a thing until Michael Bloomberg started posting cringe. More here: https://www.theverge.com/...
Facebook has also been in touch with the creators who are part of Meme 2020's efforts for the Bloomberg campaign and they're all going to retroactively update their posts to apply the correct branded content tags, which make it clear that its paid
Instagram is updating its processes after Bloomberg's meme influencer blitz (FB statement from a spokesperson below). Influencers doing sponcon for campaigns will now have to: 1. Use Insta's authorized branded content tool 2. Must be working w/ an authorized political advertiser …