Snap, Amazon.com Inc-owned Twitch, Pinterest and Instagram are the other companies which are all required to provide information such as ad revenue and number of views including those in categories of products and services more prone to deception.
The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The regulator is seeking to scrutinise and restrict paid commercial advertising that is deceptive or exposes consumers to fraudulent healthcare products, financial scams, counterfeit and fake goods, or other fraud.
“Social media has been a gold mine for scammers who tout sham products and other scams that have cost consumers enormously in recent years,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau.
“This study will help the FTC ensure that social media and video streaming companies are doing everything they can to keep scammers and deceptive ads off their platforms.”
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The order comes after the FTC asked Twitter to turn over some internal communications related to owner Elon Musk and other detailed information about business decisions as part of an investigation earlier this month.Tightened norms in India
ET reported on January 21 that social media influencers will soon have to mandatorily disclose sponsored posts as paid content if there is a material connection between them and a brand, failing which, they can be prohibited from publishing for six months and face a penalty of Rs 10 lakh and upto Rs 50 lakh for repeated offence, according to the government’s new social media influencer guidelines.
The association with advertisers should be displayed in a “hard to miss” format, said Rohit Kumar Singh, secretary, ministry of consumer affairs, while releasing the guidelines.
Disclosures should be made in the language same as the promotion, should be superimposed over the image enough for viewers to notice, should be placed in the video and not just in the description, and should not be mixed with a group of hashtags or links, said Nidhi Khare, additional secretary, ministry of consumer affairs.
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