Do you know the rules of disclosure online?

The issue of disclosure when it comes to social media is an interesting one – everyone sort of half knows the rules, they always seem to change, and there is a relative lack of information being distributed for just what you need to disclose but also how you should do this. Recently there have been a few developments in this area that have really bought the issue of online disclosure in front of the spotlight. Most notable of these are the new rulings on political campaigns in California. Hence the picture of Arnie.

As reported in The Next Web , the use of social media for political campaigns in California is coming under the same scrutiny as traditional media. A political watchdog group has made the recommendations that disclosure is made where someone has been paid to tweet, make updates to Facebook etc.. for a political party of fundraising group. So what does this mean in real terms? It means that tweets from someone on behalf of a political candidate could be appended with something like ‘ paid for by xxx’. What these rulings don’t cover though, are independent bloggers that have been paid to write a particular post or opinion piece, unless that payment reaches over $1,000. At this point they must disclose the fact that they’ve been paid, and before it – it’s just recommended. Here’s where it starts to get interesting and a bit closer to home…

Should bloggers be forced to disclose?

Whether or not bloggers should disclaim the fact that they have received a reward for a post, whether financial or a gift has been a bit of a thorny issue.  Under the FTC guidelines (pdf link) of late 2009 , bloggers are forced to disclose when they have received an ‘endorsement’ for a post, that the consumer would not necessarily expect. How this is regulated is extremely difficult, when you’re dealing with such a free and sprawling medium. You would hope that most bloggers follow these guidelines where they are aware of them, in the interests of maintaining a credible and reliable site. But more importantly, are bloggers actually aware of these rules to disclose? And where does the responsibility lie? Is it with the blogger, or the advertiser/company that’s given them the free product?

The U.S. company Ann Taylor Loft caused a bit of a stir earlier this year, with a blogger launch party for their new clothing line. They invited bloggers to the launch and promised them a free gift, and entry into a gift card draw upon receipt of a blog post and link to the site. The FTC investigated as they were concerned that disclosures would not be made by the bloggers. This was the first example of the FTC investigating relations between a company and consumers. And though no action was taken against Ann Taylor, it shows that the threat of action is very real, and that people are monitoring companies closely. Now in this example, where the whole project was so closely orchestrated to gurantee coverage, I don’t think Ann Taylor can get off scott free. But the difficulty comes into play with organisations that get caught out where there is a genuine misunderstanding of this new medium. As much as it is the bloggers’ responsibility to utlimately disclose, the advertiser must play a part here as well.

To help with the fact that bloggers might not know how or when to disclose, Louis Gray last year produced an excellent set of images that you could add to a blog post, to help you disclose (by the by, one of my favourite blog posts ever). You can download the full set of badges here (links to zip file download). This is a great and humorous take on it, but it actually points to a much more interesting issue, and that’s the method of disclosure. While bloggers may not be aware of just how prominent to make the disclosure – is it the first thing you say, in the title of the post, only after you mention the brand in questions -quite how you make it is also a bit murky.

Old rules to fit new ways

In the upcoming ruling for Californian political parties, at one point they recommend they disclosure is made in tweets. Great. The one problem is that you have 140 characters in a tweet, and having a full disclosure in every message seriously impinges on the medium itself. This is where real intricacies come into play,  and shows you must understand the medium before you try to regulate it. For Twitter for example, it would be necessary to make a very specific recommendation, that the disclosure be made in the bio description of the account, so any new followers would see it. Facebook would function differently, as would youtube videos etc..

This is poignantly highlighted by the chairman of the Fair Political Practice’s Commission, who said ”Our goal here is to meet the new challenges of 21st Century technology. There’s no way that the authors of the act could have anticipated that these of types of communicating a campaign message would ever exist.” This demonstrates a need for a keen understanding of social media and that you can’t expect the old methods to fit the new ways. And this is where you need very specific guidelines for whichever site or social profile you are setting rules for. If this isn’t done correctly, then you run the risk of  too much confusion.

Disclosure for all

It’s important to remember that the FTC’s rulings extend beyond bloggers, to cover ‘word of mouth marketers’. This is a pretty loose term that could in theory mean everyone that maintains a social profile of any sort online. Though whether they would happily describe themselves as marketers I’m not sure! Yet this is the outcome of social media, when we have all become publishers of content – every tweet or status update could really be subject to the same rules. If someone that I respect on Twitter sends a message about their great new phone, then yes, I’d probably like them to disclose the fact they’d been sent a free one to say this.

This issue of disclosure is probably not something we ever thought about when social media first emerged, yet it’s an area that’s developing and in some cases, struggling to keep up. This is something that some companies are developing their own systems for – for example Magpie required its users to add to a hasthag such as #ad or #sponsor to the end of their tweets. But these are their own rules and theere is a distinct lack of consistency across these practices.

Now that disclosure through social media is making its way onto political agendas, it’s something to really think about. For me the interesting area is not the fact of whether bloggers should disclose. This is a no-brainer. But it’s when you start thinking about every user of social media as a carrier of information, authority and a mouth-piece to their own community. Should this ever be regulated in the same way that blogs and traditional media are, when it comes to endorsements? Or are we asking too much, when we know, realistically, that this could never be fully monitored. Why have a rule in place when you can’t check if it’s being followed?