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| Instagram agrees to place restrictions on influencer ads |
The UK Market and Competition Regulatory Authority said Friday: The photo and video sharing service Instagram (owned by Facebook) has agreed to take action to remove hidden ads for so-called influencers on its platform.
By promoting their products on Instagram, influencers with thousands of followers can make substantial amounts of money with the company.
In describing the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the behavior of the main social media platforms has fundamentally changed, and Facebook Ireland, which operates Instagram in the UK, has promised to make a number of changes.
"This will make it difficult for people to post ads on Instagram without permission," the UK Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement.
Facebook has been happy to work with the UK Competition and Markets Authority to continuously improve the transparency of Instagram posts.
Facebook added, "We are also proud to launch the MediaSmart program to help young people understand and define branding content."
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is currently investigating whether too many influencers are posting content about the company, but has not clearly stated that they will be paid or any other incentives. Influencers must confirm and disclose whether they have received incentives to promote products or services.
UK Competition and Markets Authority said: Instagram will also use technology to determine when users may not have clearly discovered the post was an advertisement.
After the UK Competition Authority and market regulator intervened last year, 16 celebrities had pledged to clean up their social media work, the agency added.
To compete with the well-known service TikTok, after the Reels feature was launched on a large scale in August of last year, Instagram appeared to be hoping to generate revenue from the feature in early October.
The company announced today that it will begin testing purchases at Reels later this year and will also begin selling IGTV videos worldwide starting October 5.