Beware, Politicians! The Era of Deceptive Advertisement and Fake Reviews is Over
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is looking to sue business owners who are fraudulently eye washing US consumers through fake online reviews and deceptive advertisement practices.
If the commission makes some businesses comply with the newly introduced policy, it can extend the measure to those politicians who try to trick people through deceptive means of fake online reviews, not only about the capability but also to sell their merchandise and products.
This can not only make them pay big fines but also destroy their reputation among their voters base, which they built by burning the midnight oil.
What is the FTC’s new measure, and why should politicians start worrying about it? Let’s see.
FTC Pulling up its Socks to Impose Big Fines on Businesses
The pervasiveness of social media has reduced distances between advertisement and lying to a great extent. This penetration of digital marketing campaigns have proved the famous notion of H.G. Wells true, who said,
“Advertisement is legalized lying.”
(H.G. Wells)
This is the reason why the FTC is warning the companies to course-correct before it launches an all-out assault against them.
The FTC indicated that fake online reviews and endorsements impact consumers’ behavior and penalize companies that do not go the dirty route.
While the move is just related to businesses, for now, it is an indication of the future ambitions of the commission to crackdown against any sort of fraudulent online advertisements.
Politicians can become the victim of these sorts of legislation in some of the following ways.
- If they try to use deceptive advertisements online.
- Putting fake reviews on their own blogs or using third-party websites to cheat the voters.
- Promoting the political merchandise using fake online reviews.
FTC will crackdown against fake review which suggests that the businesses can no longer fraud people. This measure will soon get extend to politicians as well.
FTC’s Measures can Haunt Deceptive Politicians in the Long Run
The penalties are not meager at all. Currently, the FTC can fine companies up to $43,792 per violation as per the US laws.
Some of the reasons why FTC can fine companies include:
- Buying third party reviews
- False performance claims
- Not disclosing connections with the endorser
Many politicians buy online reviews through third-party websites. For instance, there could be websites owners citing false experiences about politicians and writing about events that never happened.
This type of content is enough to land them in trouble for various reasons, as it can easily fall into the measure on which the FTC is taking action.
Secondly, selling political merchandise is one of the prominent ways politicians make money while running for elections.
They launch different products with their own slogans and mottos printed on them. And the fake reviews issue in this field is equally disturbing for consumers as it is in any other field.
But the misery will not end here for politicians who become the victim of the FTC’s new rules.
For them, the declining reputation will be the most important issue to tackle. Any politician who is penalized under FTC will be pushed into a public relations crisis, as the media coverage for this sort of issue would be massive.
While managing the reputation still remains an ultimate solution, people would be increasingly skeptical about the lies of the politicians going forward.
This could have some sparkling consequences on the whole career of politicians.
Final Thoughts
Seeing all this, it is time for politicians to start devising alternate strategies instead of deceiving people using the internet.
They would need to be more mindful even before writing a single word for their next ad or hiring people for this purpose.
Amid all of this, the scope of opposition research would significantly increase, as politicians can find the deceptive campaigning methods of their rivals and build their campaigns by exploiting them.
