Ok, before everyone gets all wild and crazy and starts spewing from the corners of their mouth, no the FTC does not want you to disclose your tweeted products or products that you tweet on Twitter.
However the recent news that the FTC Wants Bloggers to Disclose Paid Reviews came to mind as I sent a tweet in regards to a new coffee I was trying out called Kana Cuban Coffee. The thought flashed through my head that at some point in time the FTC might very well want people to disclose paid tweets that they make on Twitter or any other micro-blogging network or social network for that matter. How would that tracking nightmare work?
Better yet if the FTC can fine bloggers $11,000 for not disclosing paid reviews than who says that the day might not come when Twitter users can be fined $8,000 for being paid for product tweets, blog post retweets or affiliate programs for Twitter?
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on this I’m curious to see what everyone thinks and just how far fetched (if at all) you think a scenario like that is.
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The whole blogging world has gone NUTS, is there no such thing as freedom of speech anymore, next thing you know you’ll be standing in a club saying to a friend “I saw a brilliant film last night, it was about…..” and in someone runs shouting have you been paid to talk about that film? is it your own personally opinion or one that has been altered by payments taken…. AAAARRGGHHHH
Karen @ Blazing Minds´s last blog ..Blazing Minds Interviews Karthikeyan from BlogrPro
@Karen @ Blazing Minds, to answer your first question, no there is no such thing as freedom of speech anymore.
@Extreme John, WHAT! If that’s the case I better watch what I blog
Karen @ Blazing Minds´s last blog ..Who’s The Band? – Digital Beat
How in 140 characters are you supposed to disclose a paid tweet? JK
I do like how Sponsored Tweets has their system set up, where it requires a note about it being a sponsored tweet. I think it should be more up to the twitter world to monitor that type of thing, instead of the FTC. I still think the FTC has more important things to worry about.
If someone starts doing too many paid tweets, which are usually very obvious that they’re paid, I unfollow them. No regulation needed.
Mike from Daily Shot Of Coffee´s last blog ..Bodum C-Mill Grinder Review
I like the ideas of (get this) consumers making up their OWN minds instead of being swayed by others. Talk about taking responsibility!
The question is how. How they will know which products you Tweet is actually paid and which is not. Also what is you are in Europe? Africa? Australia? Asia?
ZXT´s last blog ..Wednesdays You’ve Got to See This!
I Wish that FTC people don’t read this post otherwise they will surely bring up such rule of disclosing paid tweets..You gave them an Idea
Typhoon´s last blog ..Some easy ways to increase your Google Adsense Earnings
@Typhoon, hahaha trust me the FTC has enough people giving them ideas, I am the last person on earth they are getting ideas from.
Disclosing paid Tweets, affiliate links, etc? Ouch, that would hurt a lot of Twitterers out there for sure should this ever come into play. You are right though about how this would actually be tracked. Just like @mike said, how do you disclose a paid “something” when you only have 140 characters or less. Maybe the FTC will obliged Twitter to increase the length of characters to 280 in the future:)
DiTesco´s last blog ..How To Become A Better Blogspot User?
The character length of tweets is irrelevant. If the FTC truly wanted to, they would lobby to have Twitter implement something like “commercial” accounts in which paid tweets would be instantly recognizable, such as being in a bold font or something.
I don’t know that the FTC would bother to go after Twitter per se, because social media evolves so quickly that it would be hard to pin down a law that would be effective. I understand fining bloggers, because the line between journalism and blogging is blurring more every day and a lot of common people put a lot of trust in a spiffy looking blog, but social media is still a more “intimate” setting and as someone already pointed out, has more in common with normal conversations.
So simply put, I don’t think it will happen.
Trey – Swollen Thumb Entertainment´s last blog ..Horrorcore Music
Like you said that would be a tracking nightmare. How would they know what reviews are paid and which ones aren’t? Besides it doesn’t look like paid Tweets are pannign out the way it was expected. John Chow has only made about $100 bucks so far.
Well I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, no paid offers yet.
@Ms. Freeman, I’ve maid a couple of bucks out of it, and I’ve always put ‘#spon post’ at the end of the tweet to let people know what it is.
I wonder if that $100 John Chow made was before or after he ditched all his thousands of followers?
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..The Reason Behind Your MLM Failure
@Sire@WassupBlog, my even bigger question is…. Who gives a shit how much JC made, makes or doesn’t make?
I would be more concerned about what I make.
@Extreme John, That’s true John, and I tend to agree with you. The thing is a lot of people do get sucked in by what JC claims to make.
All the same, I stopped following him. I got tired of all the stupid restaurants and meals he kept crapping on about. May as well tweet about scratching his ass
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..Sire’s Tale Of Johann Herbig The Man Who Lived In A Tree
I’m all for this legislation, however policing it seems almost impossible. Surely there are so many loopholes.
Ben´s last blog ..‘Whatever’ Voted Most Annoying Word
The FTC is blowing smoke on this one because they want to be seen as a consumer watchdog group that is reacting to complaints about phony consumer reviews. Legit bloggers do not review products for pay unless they say so in the review itself, something like, “now folks, I gotta tell you I was paid to do this review on Scabessence Tea but if I didn’t like it, no amount of money could make me say otherwise” FTC is too bogged down to anything other than attempt to scare those who publish fake reviews of their own products. It’s like those phony testimonials on those make money online schemes like the “James” one.
@Dick@pargazer.com, That’s not always true as there are many paid tasks that specifically state that they do not want the blogger to state it as a paid review.
I’ve done many paid reviews but unless I’ve tried a product I never praise it in the post. I just fit in the link and keywords into the post without any BS. I also have a site wide disclosure policy that notifies my readers that any post found in a particular category are paid posts.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..BlueHost, CPU Throttling And Dedicated Server Packages
@Sire@WassupBlog, and all of that is the difference between being an honest blogger vs being a bs blogger.
@Extreme John, Cool, does that mean I am an honest BS blogger or a BS honest blogger.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..A Step By Step Guide Of Hosting Your WordPress Blog
It seems that the FTC thinks that the world is so full of dumb asses who can’t make up their own mind that they have to do the thinking for them. Either that or it’s just another excuse for them to make more money. Maybe they’re planning for a new bar and entertainment room for their employees?
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..Wassup With Halloween And Making Money
@Sire@WassupBlog, it’s always about money Sire, always.
@Extreme John, Too bad, it should be about helping people. Thats the problem with government departments, no real accountability.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..A Poem For Halloween The Night Of Frights
@Sire@WassupBlog, I wouldn’t argue with the FTC about dumb asses! But I also believe there should be a penalty for stupidity. Due diligence should always be encouraged.
As far as the actual purpose of the new regs and possible enforcement, I agree with you completely – More bureaucrats will be hired, more departments formed and of course more income will be derived from fines. It is all about business, you know. If they don’t turn a profit at $11,000, then the fines will be increased.
Just be glad no prison time is involved, that’s where they really make money!
Keith@Norman Rockwell Art´s last blog ..Oct 10, Where Norman Rockwell Art Collectors Begin
@Keith@Norman Rockwell Art, I agree it’s all about business….too bad they don’t know how to run their departments efficiently, because if they did they could probably get away with a lower fine.
Sire@WassupBlog´s last blog ..BlueHost, CPU Throttling And Dedicated Server Packages
I did my own post about this, and already many of the sponsored tweets companies require a minor disclosure, sponsoredtweets for instance requires an #ad, or sponsored by in the tweet, as does socialspark CPC which requires #spon in the tweet or facebook message.
I have always thought disclosure is a good thing, but in my opinion a site-wide should have been enough, the FTC requiring it to be specifically called out in each sponsored post is a bit much, but again many programs I use already supported that, and others like PayU2Blog aren’t reviews and don’t require the sponsor notification if you just include a link without actually endorsing a product.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..Twitter Outages and Delays
well i love the idea using by sponsored tweets.. people can make money from their twitter .
EarningStep´s last blog ..Shows your real time statistics about your blog with statpress reloaded – best wordpress plugin
I don’t think if it is a good idea to disclosed paid tweets. But i think their is a good reason for that thing and we have follow it because we don’t have right when it comes to this things.
Noah Group´s last blog ..Noah Group: Offering Financial Stability for your Future 
At the moment I think it’s a massively far-fetched idea.. but one that I can see someone trying to enforce.. I feel for the bastards whose job it’ll be to track that
Hard Rocking South African@Music Judge´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
It’s going to be some short ads, if you have to put “(This tweet was sponsored)” in all of them ,leaving only 110 chars left for the actual ad.
But getting rid of paid tweets wouldn’t mind me at all – I would love to see a twitter without all the spam
Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..How To Use Twitter To Get Through To Customer Support In A Jiffy
@Klaus @ TechPatio,
I certainly agree with you..there will be far less spam… That would be a good thing..
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I believe that advertiser will not want to see this news, as well as us, blogger. We won’t be getting more sponsored review if FTC wants us to disclose that. But for paid tweets, I have no comment since I’ve yet to receive any paid tweets.
With only 140 characters to use there would have to be some other method than actually writing out a disclosure.
Steve´s last blog ..Tony Grimes Favors Three Programs for College
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