The Steyer campaign pays lobbyists. Their posts don’t always make that clear

WASHINGTON — In recent weeks, several social media influencers have emerged from online feeds associated with billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer’s California gubernatorial campaign.

Others complain about the price of petrol. Others talk about environmental concerns. One cites his new sobriety as proof that people can change — a nod to Steyer’s self-proclaimed metamorphosis from hedge fund titan to corporate troublemaker.

“I didn’t expect a progressive candidate to be a billionaire, but look at the policies guys,” said one TikTok content creator with the username Jaz R. “Listen to me. I know Tom Steyer is a billionaire, but he’s also for the people.”

The posts included direct appeals to the camera, and personal details interspersed with messages of support for Steyer. The organizer walks around as text on the screen touches on Steyer’s policies. Some want to convey authenticity, if sometimes ham-fisted; one promoter misspells Steyer’s last name.

They did not disclose that their creators were paid by the Steyer campaign to produce the videos, according to a complaint filed this week with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a Times review of the post.

The complaint alleges that the Steyer campaign failed to inform the influencers it hired of their responsibility to inform their audience if their posts were sponsored by the campaign.

California passed a law in 2023 requiring influencers to disclose whether they were paid to create content promoting a candidate or poll measure, one of the few places in the country with such a requirement. There is no such requirement at the state level.

“Every time there is a new technology, you have to create a law that requires them to disclose,” said Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), who sponsored the bill.

Violations carry no criminal, civil or administrative penalties, but the FPPC can take promoters who break the law to court and ask a judge to compel them to comply.

The complaint was filed by two California women — political activists themselves — who said they noticed a flurry of new accounts that started posting videos with similar sound effects promoting Steyer earlier this month.

“They had exactly the same language, they had the same talking points,” said Beatrice Gomberg, who worked with Kaitlyn Hennessy on their digital efforts.

The FPPC did not comment on the complaint.

Steyer’s campaign appears to be relying on influencers who are paid more than any gubernatorial candidate, according to recent campaign finance filings.

Those expenses represent just a fraction of the massive campaign war Steyer has raised with his nearly $180 million. But the complaint highlights the growing degree to which political figures have come to demand the authenticity that social media influencers seem to provide.

Steyer campaign spokesman Kevin Liao said the campaign followed lobbyist hiring rules and that the campaign is “confident” that Gomberg and Hennessy’s complaint is “baseless.”

“Creators create their own productive content. This campaign believes in rewarding people for their time and their work product and paying creators to produce content,” Liao said in a statement. “Creators’ content payments are disclosed in campaign finance reports, and we inform the creators we work with directly about their disclosure requirements.”

While most of Steyer’s new lobbyists have few followers, Steyer’s campaign disclosed in its latest campaign finance report that it has paid thousands of dollars to several social media influencers with large audiences, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Many of the videos produced by these social media celebrities also failed to disclose that they were paid for by the campaign, according to the complaint and The Times’ review of the content.

But even accounts with few followers can have a big impact if they produce a steady stream of content supporting Steyer, says veteran California politician Mike Madrid.

“What they’re trying to do is an algorithm,” he said. “It looks like it has a bigger audience than it really is. It takes the concept of astrology into the digital age.”

Gomberg and Hennessy said they became friends after meeting at a campaign event in April for Xavier Becerra, Steyer’s main Democratic rival in the race, who defeated Steyer in the most recent political election.

The two have been frequent social media supporters of Becerra’s campaign ever since, though they insist they are not being paid for their efforts.

They said they discovered that many of the new pro-Steyer accounts appeared to be run by lobbyists — mostly women — who had created separate social media accounts to market other products.

One of the pro-Steyer lobbyists had an online portfolio that listed many clients, including a Steyer campaign and a gummy designed to arouse passion, according to the complaint and a Times review of the publicly accessible website.

They said they came across an ad placed by a campaign seller in a place used by creatives to find work. The ad indicated that creators would be paid $10 per post, with bonuses for posts that garnered the most views.

The seller who posted the ad did not respond to a request for comment.

The ad has been updated to say it pays $1,000 a month and that creators will have to disclose that it contains paid content.

As Gomberg and Hennessy dug deeper, they determined that some of the lobbyists promoting the gubernatorial candidate were not even in California.

A TikTok account using the handle jess.votes, for example, appears to be linked to a woman registered to vote in Florida. Other accounts linked to women indicated elsewhere that they were based in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Michigan.

Several activists who created apparently paid content promoting Steyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Times.

The brouhaha over paid social media content is just the latest example of the growing political influence of internet creators.

Eric Swalwell’s campaign for governor – and congressional career – came to an end after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. The two influencers had publicly raised concerns about Swalwell’s behavior and helped connect the victims with journalists who produced detailed reports on the allegations.

California law requires campaigners to disclose in the audio or text of a political post that it was sponsored and who paid for it.

The onus is on creators to disclose, but campaigns are needed to tell them that they should. Despite the passage of the law, the issue has so far remained under the radar.

“I have a lot of candidates and campaigns and I’ve never heard this issue come up once,” said a campaign finance attorney who asked not to be named because they represent a lot of people with active campaigns.

Gomberg and Hennessy said they were forced to take notice of potential disclosure violations because of their concerns about the damaging impact paid content could have if left unchecked.

“You have people who rely on these creators,” said Hennessy. “You have a responsibility to your audience.”