Social network X announced a new “Paid Partnership” label on Monday. Creators can now apply this label to their posts to clearly indicate they are advertisements. This feature aims to help creators maintain authenticity by letting their followers know when a product recommendation is an original opinion versus a paid sponsorship. It also assists in complying with regulations that require advertisements on social media to be properly labeled.
Similar tags have existed for years on other platforms, like Instagram. This followed warnings from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission back in 2017, which instructed influencers to clearly and conspicuously disclose when a post is sponsored by an advertiser. Last year, Instagram expanded its Partnership Ads to allow creators to also get paid for written testimonials shared as comments on a brand’s social media posts.
Until now, creators on X did not have a built-in way to label such posts. They had to rely on hashtags like #paidpartnership and #ad. With the new feature, creators can toggle on a “content disclose” setting when composing a post to apply the Paid Partnership label, which will appear directly below the post’s content. The label can also be applied after the fact if a creator forgets to use it initially.
According to X’s head of product, Nikitia Bier, the feature allows creators to be transparent with their followers while following federal regulations. He stated that while X wants to encourage people to build their businesses on the platform, undisclosed promotions hurt the integrity of the product and lead people to distrust the content they read.
X has long tried to appeal to creators by offering payouts for viral content, ad-revenue sharing, creator subscriptions, and other incentives. However, as a platform primarily known for real-time news and event discussions, it has struggled to attract creators who often prefer to reach audiences on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms.
The introduction of Paid Partnership labels makes it easier for creators to comply with rules without cluttering their posts with hashtags, which have become somewhat passé. This move follows other recent changes by X focused on content authenticity. Last week, the company announced that its API can no longer be used for programmatic replies unless the original author had mentioned the replying user or was quoted by them. This change is intended to reduce LLM-generated spam activity, which can include fake AI-generated replies from shady brands pretending to be satisfied customers.