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It’s perhaps no surprise that both Democrats and Republicans are now relying on social media influencers to get out the vote and help tip elections in their favor. What is surprising, though, is the amount of “dark money” that is exchanging hands, By some accounts, political campaigns from both parties are pouring millions of dollars into the social media influencer game.
If social media influencers clearly labeled each paid social media post, maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal. But they are currently under no obligation to report that money to anyone, or to let their followers know that a certain social media post was paid for by a political party.
What needs to be fixed?
In many ways, this is the fault of the system. According to current rules, social media influencers must make it clear that they accepted money if they are promoting a commercial product. But there are no rules that state this is the case if they are making a political post that does not involve any products.
There’s something about this that is just not right. Think about the political campaign ads that you see on TV all the time. At the end of every ad, there is always someone saying something along the lines of, “This ad paid for by X” or “I’m Candidate X, and I approve this message.” This immediately lets you know that a Political Action Committee (PAC) paid for the ad, or that a political candidate paid for an ad.
So it’s not asking too much for social media influencers to do the same. Why not include a quick hashtag like #political or #ad or #sponsored on each post? That would alert their followers that a particular message was bought and paid for. If nothing else, it would make the whole system more transparent.
The “dark money” pools
What makes the current situation so exasperating is that political campaigns know exactly what they are doing, and how sketchy it might appear to outsiders. So they are specifically taking steps to hide the source of their money, and how it is spent. Often, they are reaching out to third-party intermediaries, such as marketing agencies that specialize in social media influencers, so that they are not making any direct payments to influencers.
That’s why it’s fair to call this “dark money” (or, at least, “opaque money”). There are literally millions of dollars sloshing around the system, and nobody knows where it’s coming from, or how it’s impacting what people see on social media. What makes it all so bizarre is that it’s not even “political influencers” who are getting the big bucks. Often, it’s “beauty influencers” or “travel influencers,” or someone you wouldn’t expect.
Thus, when these influencers take a break from promoting their own products to say something about politics, it sounds like something that’s coming from their hearts. People believe them when they say to vote for Candidate X rather than Candidate Y.
How much power do social media influencers have now?
Often, it’s only after an election that people find out the real details. For example, we’re now finding out that the Kamala Harris campaign might have paid millions of dollars for celebrity endorsements or for appearances on popular TV shows or podcasts. And it also paid millions to social media influencers.The average person probably thought these influencers were concerned about democracy, and were deciding to back Kamala Harris for that reason. But what if they were paid?
And, as noted above, this is a problem afflicting both major political parties, so let’s not just beat up on Kamala Harris. How about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? It turns out that he might have paid nearly half-a-million dollars to influencer marketing agencies. And what about Donald Trump’s appearances on all those youth-oriented podcasts for the Generation Z vote? We don’t know, but maybe some money changed hands there as well.
This is a serious problem that deserves a closer look. The pool of dark money almost certainly had an impact on the 2024 presidential election, and it’s almost certain to have an impact on future elections as well. The time to fix the problem is when it is still possible to manage and treat. If we allow it to grow any bigger, it might be impossible to fix later.
