#payola — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #payola, aggregated by home.social.
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New York Times: Influencers Have a Lot to Say About Politics. Many Are Quietly Paid for It.. This link goes to a gift article. Also, I don’t take a damn dime from anybody to shill anything, including people and ideologies. “There are no federal regulations requiring disclosure of payments for political support on social media, and only a few states have such rules. That allows influencers, in […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/30/new-york-times-influencers-have-a-lot-to-say-about-politics-many-are-quietly-paid-for-it/ -
Associated Press: Lawsuit seeks to ban Trump Media from charging for early access to president’s posts on US policy. “The lawsuit alleges the service offering paying customers sneak peeks of his posts about U.S. policy on war, tariffs and other issues violates the Constitution and that official announcements should be made available to everyone at the same time. The new subscription service […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/08/13/associated-press-lawsuit-seeks-to-ban-trump-media-from-charging-for-early-access-to-presidents-posts-on-us-policy/ -
BBC: Trump Media to sell instant access to ‘market-moving’ social posts. “Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is launching a paid service to give Wall Street firms high-speed access to its most influential posts. From 1 August, instant updates will be delivered from ‘the highest-ranking’ accounts, it said. US President Donald Trump currently has the most followers on the […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/17/bbc-trump-media-to-sell-instant-access-to-market-moving-social-posts/ -
Also reminded of the other new #payola, promoted playlists.
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Apparently influencers are all about getting paid. 🙄
LA Times: Restaurants are paying influencers for promotional posts. How messy can it get?
"...A $500 deal between Hollywood Thai and a popular food influencer collapsed into online outrage and public shaming, exposing a murky world of paid restaurant promotion online...."
(paywall, but the article is more about how the influencer didn't deliver on time and the expense of paying influencers... not on the morality of influencers pumping up people just for money)
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NPR: Music influencers are getting paid to promote songs — and they're not telling you
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/13/nx-s1-5849926/influencers-paid-music-promotion
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iHeartMedia Settles FCC ‘Payola’ Investigation Without Any Fine or Determination of Wrongdoing
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FCC Says iHeartMedia Will Implement Compliance Plan After Payola Investigation
#News #Politics #ElectionLine #FCC #IHeartCountryFestival #IHeartRadio #Payolahttps://deadline.com/2026/07/iheartmedia-fcc-payola-1236978613/
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Gizmodo: Kalshi Asks Influencers to Take Down Sponsored Conspiracy Posts About the LA Election. “According to reporting from Semafor, the prediction market Kalshi sought to clean up apparent messes on Friday after some of its influencer relationships essentially made it look like it was paying to distribute conspiracy content online. Posts have now been removed at Kalshi’s request. However, […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/06/09/gizmodo-kalshi-asks-influencers-to-take-down-sponsored-conspiracy-posts-about-the-la-election/ -
Politico: Polymarket is paying some of social media’s biggest political influencers. “At least 20 of the content creators identified by POLITICO promoted Polymarket on social media after they started receiving money from [chief marketing officer Matthew] Modabber, according to the payment records and POLITICO’s analysis of their social media activity. During the 14-month span reflected in […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/06/05/politico-polymarket-is-paying-some-of-social-medias-biggest-political-influencers/ -
Malay Mail: No such thing as a free lunch: The problem with influencers as ‘food reviewers’ in Malaysia. “In the past, the two co-existed side by side: restaurants advertised to diners, and diners knew they could rely on trusted, independent reviews to make informed decisions. But the advent of social media and the rise of the influencer have blurred those lines. Yes, media invites and […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/31/no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch-the-problem-with-influencers-as-food-reviewers-in-malaysia-malay-mail/ -
New York Times: Political Money Is Flowing to Influencers. But From Whom?. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Espina’s arrangement provides a rare glimpse into the world of pay-for-play social media, where content creators and marketing firms are increasingly compensated to promote candidates or points of view and where there are few requirements for disclosure. The paid advocacy exists […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/20/new-york-times-political-money-is-flowing-to-influencers-but-from-whom/ -
Washington Post: Inside a MAGA influencer’s turn against the right-wing machine. This link goes to a Yahoo-syndicated version of the article with no paywall. “[Ashley] St. Clair’s transformation from a self-described ‘good little foot soldier’ to MAGA turncoat has unspooled in near-daily monologues to more than 77,000 followers on her TikTok feed, where she applies makeup from her New York […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/08/washington-post-inside-a-maga-influencers-turn-against-the-right-wing-machine/ -
Spotify Users Can’t Sue Over Discovery Mode ‘Payola’ Accusations, Judge Says
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New York Times: Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok. This link goes to a gift article. “Mr. Musk is requiring banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers working on the I.P.O. to buy subscriptions to Grok, his artificial intelligence chatbot, which is part of SpaceX, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, who were not authorized […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/03/new-york-times-big-banks-seeking-a-piece-of-spacexs-i-p-o-must-subscribe-to-elon-musks-grok/ -
Wall Street Journal: Trump administration set to receive $10 billion fee for brokering TikTok deal This is an MSN-syndicated version of the article and has no paywall. “The Trump administration is set to receive a roughly $10 billion fee from investors in the recently completed deal to take control of TikTok’s U.S. business, delivering it a windfall for keeping the popular social-media app […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/03/14/wall-street-journal-trump-administration-set-to-receive-10-billion-fee-for-brokering-tiktok-deal/ -
"Splish Splash" is a 1958 #novelty #rockSong performed and co-written by #BobbyDarin. It was written with DJ #MurrayTheK (Murray Kaufman), who bet that Darin could not write a song that began with the words, "Splish splash, I was takin' a bath", as suggested by Murray's mother, Jean Kaufman. The song was credited to Darin and "Jean Murray" (a combination of their names) to avoid any hint of #payola. It was Darin's first hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSA-yHzkvP8 -
Spotify Fires Back at ‘Payola’ Lawsuit Over Discovery Mode, Says Listeners Waived the Right to Sue
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.billboard.com/pro/spotify-responds-payola-lawsuit-discovery-mode/
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“Link publishing becomes a paywalled feature”
The writing on the wall for ad tech = #payola
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If this was old-school radio, that would be #payola
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Gizmodo: A Small Army of Overpaid TikTokers Is Not Going to Save the Democratic Party. “The apparent crisis of faith plaguing the party’s base would explain this week’s story from Wired, which revealed an alleged secretive arrangement between a group of social media influencers and a Democrat-aligned dark money group. The influencers, many of whom have substantial followings on sites like […]
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Engadget: Meta has ended its bonus program on Threads. “Meta is no longer paying creators to post on Threads. The company quietly ended the Threads bonus program, which offered some creators thousands of dollars a month in bonuses, earlier this year, Engadget has confirmed.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/02/engadget-meta-has-ended-its-bonus-program-on-threads/
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😱 TRUMPVIRUS ALERT -
While nobody's looking & distractions and traumas abound - Trump has given away our homeland...unilaterally. Toddler #King
> 'Wildly unpopular': Trump slammed after opening 30% of US National Forest land to logging
#TrumpVirus #landgrab #greed #theft #oligarchy #distraction #evil #logging #payola #grift #corruption #feudalism
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Engadget: Google pays Samsung an ‘enormous’ amount of money to pre-install Gemini on phones. “Google has been paying Samsung tons of cash every month to pre-install the AI app Gemini on its smartphones, according to a report by Bloomberg. This information comes to us as part of a pre-existing antitrust case against Google. Peter Fitzgerald, Google’s VP of platforms and device […]
