ACCC Digital Platforms Report #6 - Influencer Sweep Report

The ACCC Digital Platforms Services Inquiry has delivered it’s Interim Report #6: Report on Social Media Services including details of the recent influencer sweep conducted by the ACCC.

Section 5 of the report covers influencers and addresses: an overview of influencer relationships with platforms, influencer advertising and compliance and disclosure requirements, influencer revenue and influencer harassment.

The concerning outcome of the ACCC sweep is that in the report they indicate that in relation to ad disclosure, a total of 81% of the influencer posts they were monitoring were concerning and in need of follow-up action.

The ACCC’s concerns centred around not just posts which failed to make any disclosure of commercial relationships, but also posts which failed to clearly and prominently disclose those commercial relationships. This included burying disclosures such as #ad within lengthy captions such that their audience would have to select “click more” on posts to look for a disclosure.

Tegan Boorman, of Social Law Co. and Chair of AiMCO has provided a comprehensive update regarding the ACCC sweep and the report in this article.