How sweet this isn’t. The United States Federal Trade Commission issued written warnings to two trade groups and 12 social media influencers on Wednesday, accusing them of promoting products containing sugar or hyping up the safety of artificial sweetener aspartame — but without sharing that they were actually paid to do so.
The FTC revealed it has sent warning letters to the American Beverage Association (aka AmeriBev) and the Canadian Sugar Institute to address concerns that they “may have violated the FTC Act by failing to adequately disclose that the influencers were apparently hired to promote the safety of aspartame or the consumption of sugar-containing products, respectively.” The FTC claimed that these influencers, who describe themselves as dietitians, nutritionists and health gurus, have been promoting sugar and aspartame consumption on their TikTok and Instagram accounts without properly disclosing that they were being paid to do so. “It’s irresponsible for any trade group to hire influencers to tout its members’ products and fail to ensure that the influencers come clean about that relationship,” Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “That’s certainly true for health and safety claims about sugar and aspartame, especially when …
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