California Cracks Down on Influencers’ Undisclosed Political Ads

Assemblyman Marc Berman, a Democrat, said he decided to introduce the bill after seeing media reports that politicians were quietly funneling money to influencers during California’s heated primary for governor this spring.

One candidate, the billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democrat, paid dozens of creators to post favorably about his campaign on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Reddit, but many of them did not initially include a written disclosure on their social media postings.

That led to multiple complaints being filed to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission against the Steyer campaign, as well as at least one against his chief rival, Xavier Becerra, who went on to win the primary. Mr. Becerra will face Steve Hilton, a Republican, in November.

“I was hearing from people in the campaign world that there’s this new strategy of paying political influencers to post content and that some were good about disclosure and others were a bit fast and loose,” Mr. Berman said in an interview. “I realized there was a bit of ambiguity about the law and how it’s enforced.”

The Fair Political Practices Commission opened an investigation into Mr. Steyer’s campaign in May. Earlier this week, it closed that inquiry, saying that Mr. Steyer had properly notified the influencers of their statutory requirements around disclosure and “then reminded the influencers when posts were discovered without the disclaimer.” Another investigation into Steyer’s campaign is pending.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/business/media/california-political-ads-influencers-law.html