FTC to Crack Down on Paid Celebrity Posts That Aren’t Clear Ads

DJ Khaled attends his Album Release Party in New York.

Photographer: Shareif Ziyadat/WireImage via Getty Images

Snapchat star DJ Khaled raves about Ciroc vodka. Fashion lifestyle blogger Cara Loren Van Brocklin posts a selfiewith PCA Skin sunscreen. Internet personality iJustine posts Instagrams from an Intel event. Missing from their messages: any indication about whether they’ve been paid.

This uptick in celebrities peddling brand messages on their personal accounts, light on explicit disclosure, has not gone unnoticed by the U.S. government. The Federal Trade Commission is planning to get tougher: Users need to be clear when they’re getting paid to promote something, and hashtags like #ad, #sp, #sponsored --common forms of identification-- are not always ...