Disclosure eyes
What to do about those new FTC rules for bloggers? Jacqueline offers a suggestion:
Maybe as a society we should just change our assumptions? Perhaps our default assumption should be that all endorsements are paid endorsements unless the reviewer states that they were NOT compensated. Then instead of prosecuting people for committing lies of omission (forgetting or not knowing that they have to explicitly disclose when they’ve been compensated for a review) we only prosecute people for lies of commission (claiming that you were not paid when you really were).
Everyone knows that lying is wrong and almost everyone understands that you can get into trouble for lying about something related to money, but not everyone knows (or should be expected to know) the laws requiring disclosure about paid endorsements in publications or broadcasts. Most people don’t even realize that their personal blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. is covered by the many of the same rules covering newspapers and TV channels. Now that technology has put the power to publish/broadcast into the hands of ordinary people, perhaps we should consider revising our expectations of publishers/broadcasters to be more in line with what ordinary people can reasonably be expected to understand and comply with.
Our expectations of publishers/broadcasters are fairly low, but this is due at least partially to the fact that those laws requiring disclosure actually exist: after you’ve seen one “compensated endorsement” after another, it’s reasonable to assume that everyone (excluding ourselves, of course) is on the take. But that being the case, the task of shifting the default assumption is actually greatly simplified, since we pretty much already believe it.
Still, we can’t expect the laws to be written this way: with any given regulation, all else being equal, government prefers to criminalize the largest number of persons possible — pour encourager les autres, one assumes.
fillyjonk »
9 October 2009 · 7:22 am
Jacqueline’s idea is eminently reasonable. (Therefore, it will never be put into practice). I have seen a few blogs that are totally endorsement-blogs. I never read them; they’re BORING.
I do know that some of the craft bloggers were part of what was called an “ad-free blog” movement; I don’t know if that was a “we will not make paid endorsements” pledge, or if it was a “we are not going to put Google ads and other crap like that on our blogs” but they had a little badge they posted. I suppose it might be possible to do something like that, some kind of a blanket comment? Or is that not good enough?
McGehee »
9 October 2009 · 9:00 am
Well, if I put a no-compensation” blanket disclaimer on my blog, it will probably say something like, The author of the content herein contained receives no compensation whatsoever for what he writes, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Now look at this place — which came first, the chicken or the egg?