On September 7, 2017, the FTC announced that Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Thomas “Syndicate” Cassell – two social media influencers widely followed in the online gaming community – settled the first complaint that the FTC has ever served against individual social media influencers.
The FTC investigated TmarTn and Syndicate for having deceptively endorsed the online gambling service, CSGO Lotto, while failing to disclose they jointly owned the company.
With the order settling the charges, the Commission required TmarTn and Syndicate to clearly and conspicuously disclose any material connections with an endorser or between an endorser and any promoted product or service.
Following the publication of the FTC’s Endorsement Guides, the Commission sent more than 90 educational letters to social media influencers and brands in April of this year. The letters informed the influencers that if they are endorsing a brand and have a “material connection” to the marketer, this must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed, unless the connection is already clear from the context of the endorsement.
In addition, a press notice released in September 2017 informs that the FTC’s staff sent warning letters to 21 of the influencers previously contacted citing the specific social media posts of concern and providing details on why they may not be in compliance with the FTC Act as explained in the Commission’s Endorsement Guides.
FTC’s complaint is available at https://www.ftc.gov/csgolotto_complaint.pdf
FTC’s Agreement containing the Consent Order is available at https://www.ftc.gov/ _csgolotto_agreement_and_decision_and_order.pdf
The FTC’s press release regarding this CSGO complaint and settlement is available at https://www.ftc.gov….
For more information on the FTC’s approach to disciplining the influencers, contact Francesca Giannoni-Crystal
Originally published on Technethis on March 2018