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Beyond public trust and government regulation, social media will face these tricky but inevitable issues...
Who ensures that the product benefits social media influencers recommend to us are real?
Nobody…in most parts of the world at least.
But in Taiwan, where YouTubers and Instagrammers rival the fame of TV celebrities, authorities are clamping down on product endorsement deals that are key sources of revenue for them. In the three years from 2016 to March 2019, Taiwan’s authorities has imposed 26 fines for exaggeration of product benefits by influencers.
The wild wild west of social media influencers
In recent news, Taiwan media reported that a celebrity’s wife has been fined a total of NTD 640,000 (USD 20,750) over the course of two years. This amount represents eight cases where she was found guilty of exaggerating the benefits of health and beauty products she was paid to endorse on her social media accounts.
The news broke on the heels of another famous influencer being fined NTD 200,000 (USD 6,500) for endorsing a DIY cervical cancer detection kit. Evelyn Chen, who goes by the handle ‘Li Ke Tai Tai’ (literally translated, ‘Mrs Science’), contravened Taiwan’s medical devices advertising act. She has a million…
