The new feature will provide another transparency measure for brand partnerships in the app, and will also bring X more in line with other social apps, as well as with evolving regulations around paid content disclosure.
Creators will now be able to indicate when they’re sharing sponsored content or engaging branded partnerships by activating the paid partnership label via a new flag icon within the composer.
That will then bring up a simple toggle to switch on the paid partnership tag, adding a small indicator below the preview image in-stream.
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The new feature will provide another transparency measure for brand partnerships in the app, and will also bring X more in line with other social apps, as well as with evolving regulations around paid content disclosure.
Creators will now be able to indicate when they’re sharing sponsored content or engaging branded partnerships by activating the paid partnership label via a new flag icon within the composer.
That will then bring up a simple toggle to switch on the paid partnership tag, adding a small indicator below the preview image in-stream.
X creators will also be able to add the paid partnership tag after posting, by going into the three dots menu on a post and selecting “Add content disclosure” from the list.
It’s a simple tagging process that will add more transparency and ensure that X users are aware of paid sponsorships in-stream.
This has apparently become a bigger problem of late. As part of his explanation of the update, X Head of Product Nikita Bier said the main focus of the option is to improve transparency around pay-per-post promotions “that have run rampant recently.”
X has been particularly focused on crypto promotions and the use of X as a channel to amplify crypto opportunities.
Last month, X sought to address potential misuse of X by crypto projects by cutting off API access to all apps that offer posting incentives. Some InfoFi and crypto offer rewards for promoting their projects, in order to get more people posting about them. In particular, X has been a specific focus due to its connection with the crypto community. InfoFi group members can earn tokens and perks for amplifying project messages, which X claimed has resulted in more spam being posted to the app.
Many of these promotions are unmarked, making it unclear that they are promoting a crypto project. The tagging update addresses this, with X also updating its ad rules to allow crypto promotions as sponsored content, so long as these promotions are tagged.
A previous iteration of X’s Paid Partnerships policy (captured last month via the Wayback Machine) stated that the following were “prohibited industries” for paid promotion:
Financial products, services or opportunities (including loans, investment services, crypto, buy now pay later services and other financial-related content)
Gambling products and services (including lotteries, social casinos, sports betting, and other gambling related content)
Both have now been removed from X’s updated prohibited industry list:
Yet, despite the update to X’s rules, financial and gambling promotions remain restricted in some regions, including the U.K., Europe and Australia.
On that front, X’s updated Paid Partnership rules stated: “You are responsible for ensuring that any Paid Partnership that you post complies with all applicable laws and regulations, including all advertising laws and, where applicable, FTC regulations, including the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
The simple tags will supersede X’s previous rules for paid promotions, which required that users “include clear and conspicuous language” to indicate commercial partnerships, which mostly saw creators including the #ad hashtag.
Having a simple tagging process will improve on this, and ensure more transparency in the app.
