Social network X announced Monday the introduction of a new “paid partnership” label that creators can apply to their posts to show that they are ads. This feature can help improve the authenticity of creators, so fans know when a product recommendation is genuine passion, versus a paid sponsorship, while also complying with regulations that say social media ads require labels.
Similar tags have existed for years on other platforms, such as Instagram, while the US Federal Trade Commission warned influencers in 2017 that they need to “clearly and unambiguously disclose” when a post is sponsored by an advertiser, or if that company otherwise endorses them. Last year, Instagram expanded its partnership ads to also allow creators to pay for written testimonials shared as comments on a brand’s social media posts.
However, creators on X have no internal way to label posts, so they can use hashtags like #paidpartnership and #ad to label their posts.
With the new feature, creators will be able to toggle a new “content disclosure” setting on a post to apply a paid partnership label that will then appear directly below the post’s content. This label can also be applied after the fact, if the creator forgot to use the option when originally posting. This feature allows creators to be transparent with their followers, while also complying with federal regulations, according to XK’s Head of Product, Nikita Beyer.
“While we want to encourage people to build their businesses on X, unknown promotions undermine the integrity of the product and cause people to distrust the content they read on X,” he wrote in a post on X. Announcement New feature.
X has tried to appeal to the creative community for some time, offering payment for viral content, ad revenue sharing, creator subscriptions, and more. But as a platform known as a place to discuss real-time news and events, the company has struggled to attract creators who still often prefer to reach their audiences through Instagram, YouTube and elsewhere.
With the addition of paid partnership labels, the company is at least making it easier for creators to play by the rules without ruining their posts with hashtags, which are somewhat outdated. (When Instagram launched its X competitor Threads, it actually did away with the hash symbol entirely.)
X has made other changes that focus on the authenticity of content on its platform. Last week, it announced that its API can no longer be used for programmatic replies unless the original author mentions the user who replied or the author cites them. This is intended to minimize the impact of LLM-generated spam activity on X. These types of AI-generated responses can also be used by dubious brands to respond to ads and sponsored content from creators as if they were other, legitimate customers who enjoyed the product in question.