FTC to Crack Down on Paid Celebrity Posts That Aren’t Clear Ads
In many ways the limits on commercial speech make sense, we don&#x27;t want people selling snake oil claiming it is the cure for cancer.  Certainly that is an extreme and doesn&#x27;t suggest the same is true of good-faith product endorsement on IG without disclosure, but the same potential for abuse exists, especially on highly regulated products that have very specific advertising regulations (i.e. alcohol and tobacco) that might be advertised in good faith.<p>I think one of the most bizarre applications to date is the  Martha Stewart case.  During her insider trading case, she actually picked up new charges for securities fraud because throughout the insider trading case she continually proclaimed her innocence.  Now I think if Free Speech protects anything, it should protect our ability to proclaim our innocence publicly when the government charges us with a crime; however, the new charges alleged she proclaimed her innocence with the specific intent of artificially and fraudulently propping up the stock of the Martha Stewart company. These new charges carried up to 20 years, but ultimately the prosecutors dismissed them when she was found guilty and sentenced for the insider trading charges. It would have been a very interesting case from a legal perspective.