Illustration by Annelise Capossela/For The Washington Post; iStock
This week I’m answering one of the questions I am asked most frequently as a campaign-turned-creator reporter: What’s with all the discourse and scandals around political creators and how they are, or are not, being paid for their political engagement?
Just look at the drama around the recent California gubernatorial primary, in which a creator was paid $400,000 that they did not initially disclose; or how a creator stirred up the Texas Senate primary by claiming one candidate dismissed another as “mediocre.” There is ongoing coverage of Hasan Piker’s endorsements and whether candidates should accept them; not to mention Taylor Lorenz’s reporting about shady Chorus contracts that politicos are still talking about almost a year later.
As someone who spent a good chunk of the last three years trying to convince people that creators matter and should be a center part of today’s political coverage, I’m glad that these debates are even occurring and that the political press corps is finally beginning to tune in. And to be clear, creators aren’t new to politics. But they’ve reached a level of such significance to campaigns and elections that they truly cannot be ignored, and there’s still a huge lack of understanding about the space.
Political creators have told me they think audiences are woefully unaware of how much political content is paid, and also expressed frustration about how much extra scrutiny they face from their audiences compared to creators with other focus areas.
I turned to Isabel Linzer, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, to help break down the conditions that have made it such a fertile ground for controversy.
In short: an absence of disclosure on political content, like one might see on an ad for a product or indicating a partnership on a brand trip, suggests to online audiences that a creator isn’t being paid for their political activism. But really those disclosures about who is funding political content are absent because the Federal Trade Commission, which regulates disclosures for products, has no statutory authority over political content. Political speech is instead governed by the Federal Election Commission, which is more focused on candidate and committee spending on traditional media like radio or TV ads, allowing creators to fall through the gaps.
I reached out to the FEC and asked if they plan to further regulate creator content and they did not respond by deadline. Earlier this month Rep. Mark Takano (D-California) introduced a bill that would amend the Federal Election Campaign Act to require any person who is paid by a political committee or candidate to include a disclaimer that they were paid to post content.
For now audiences and voters are left confused about where a creator’s own political speech turns into undisclosed paid messaging, which can have real consequences as Americans increasingly get their information via social media and experience politics online.
“The rules and kind of transparency efforts that we are just used to in political campaigning, generally, just simply don't apply in most cases when it comes to influencers,” Linzer said.
In other words, the issue isn’t going anywhere and is only going to get more inescapable as we head towards the midterms and 2028 presidential election.
What does the FTC require?: The FTC requires creators to disclose to their audience if the content of their post has been paid for by a company to promote a product or brand. Commonly, you will see creators use hashtags like #ad, #paid or #partner.
“But political speech doesn't count as commercial activity, and I think that's actually something that can be really confusing, both for influencers and for their audiences,” Linzer said. That means sometimes creators use FTC disclosures on their political content, even if legally they don’t have to. But that also means the absence of a disclosure — because the content is political and thus not regulated by the FTC — can lead audiences to believe something is not paid even if it was.
So what about the FEC?: “Electioneering is one of these things that requires labels on certain advertisements and expenditure disclosures, but they apply to more traditional media,” Linzer said. “So there are some things that we see in political influencer activity that might fall under FEC disclosure and disclaimer rules if only they were distributed through a different medium.”
Other complicating exceptions are if creators’ posts are boosted, or paid by a campaign to be promoted to an audience wider than the creators’ followers, which then falls under FEC regulations around election-related communications placed or promoted for a fee on a platform.
In California and Texas — ironically some of the states we’ve seen the biggest political creator drama flare up recently — there are additional state level regulations that require creators to disclose paid political advertisements in certain conditions.
Creators are hard to categorize: Creators who may post about politics don’t fall into a clear bucket. They can move between serving as surrogates, advocates, canvassers, or journalists — without following the same industry standards that apply to any of those sects. It’s hard to even define a political creator: Should that include only creators whose entire profile is devoted to political information? Is there a difference between someone who provides news updates or only pure political advocacy? Do guidelines apply to any creator who ever mentions politics? And where do politics start and end?
Candidate endorsements are surely political, but what about discussion of policy, be it healthcare or complaining about the cost of gas or rent? “Our legal system and the way platforms set up their policies don't account for these kind of amorphous shape-shifting members of the political ecosystem,” Linzer said.
The range of political speech varies: The political creator spectrum ranges from “exactly the model of what civic discourse, democratic participation looks like in the 21st century, where people are on there sharing their views and engaging in political speech” to “an opportunity for … foreign money to be laundered in elections,” Linzer said, with “the same set of rules trying to govern both of those things at the same time.”
As does the type of engagement: Creators can offer a wide array of deliverables — making a specific post, participating in a fellowship where they support a broader cause or multiple issues over a longer time period, etc. What they get in exchange also varies: they can be paid, or be given access to candidates or exclusive venues, invited to the table for policy-making decisions, etc. (That’s not to even mention the debate over if creators deserve to be paid for political work, what equitable access looks like, or pay disparities across parties).
Who is paying creators?: A creator — as I’ve seen many times in my political reporting — can say they are not being paid by a campaign, and that is taken by their audience at face value, when in actuality they’re being paid by an outside group or PAC to post in support of that campaign. (The same is true for a campaign claiming they aren’t paying creators).
Intermediary marketing firms muddy the water, Linzer explained, so when you look at a FEC disclosure, you just see the name of a social media marketing firm and not individual creators. That firm could be doing anything from placing ads on social media to paying creators. The campaign might not even know which creators they are hiring, which also allows a shield for the campaign spokespeople or candidate to claim they aren’t behind particular creator messaging.
Who is responsible, then?: There’s a “really high bar” for “federal government involvement in this because of the First Amendment,” Linzer said of the FEC’s lack of regulation around creators. And the government isn’t exactly known for moving quickly or efficiently.
There’s also a question of who bears responsibility: Are creators responsible for developing best practices for fact-checking information for their audiences? Are creator managers and agents responsible for making sure their clients follow existing guidelines? Are campaigns responsible for what they’re asking for from creators? Should social media platforms police disclosure? Are those platforms even enforcing their existing rules? Do social and payment platforms incentivize certain types of content via monetization and algorithms?
Will it get worse?: All signs point to yes. Further technological developments continue to outpace regulations, meaning more fuzziness when it comes to who’s paying who. Just look at AI content, clipping and the overlap with political betting for a sampling of what’s to come.
This story is part of Verified, a newsletter that is published by Washington Post Creator, a team outside The Washington Post’s newsroom that is focused on the creator economy and content partnerships with independent creators. Learn more about Washington Post Creator.
