Trade Ministry slaps ‘influencers’ with fines

ANKARA

The Trade Ministery’s Advertisement Board has imposed a total of 6.4 million Turkish Liras in fines on 11 social media influencers.

The board, which has been scrutinizing advertisements on social media platforms, slapped five influencers with fines last year and another six this year.

Authorities launched the Artificial Screening of Social Media Ads Project in March 2022.

With the project, the rate of not clearly stating that influencer posts are advertisements decreased from 57 percent to 11 percent.

Taking into account factors such as the unfair content, the number of followers and the benefit and economic gains influencers make, the board took actions, including suspension and administrative fines.

Last year, five influencers were fined 1.35 million liras. In the first six months of this year, authorities decided to impose an administrative fine of 5 million liras on 11 influencers. Thus, a total of 6.39 million fines were imposed in the one-and-a-half-year period.

While administrative sanctions were imposed on 77 social media accounts in 2023, this number reached 50 in the first half of 2024.

Administrative sanctions were imposed because posts by influencers advertised products or services from brands without clearly labeling them as advertisements.

Some influencers were also fined for promoting hospitals, doctors and certain health services, as well as promoting products prohibited from advertising.