[Asia Economy Reporter Eunju Lee] The social media platform with the highest number of ‘undisclosed paid advertisement’ posts?where payment is received for posting advertisements but this is not clearly indicated?was found to be Instagram.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission conducted ‘SNS Unfair Advertising Prevention Monitoring’ targeting major social media platforms from April to December last year to prevent deceptive advertising towards consumers. As a result, a total of 21,037 suspicious unfair advertising posts were discovered. Among them, 9,510 posts were found on Instagram, 9,445 on Naver Blog, and 1,607 on YouTube.
Instagram had the highest number of unfair advertising posts at 9,510. On Instagram, the most common form of unfair advertising was ‘inappropriate placement of disclosure,’ accounting for 81.9% (7,787 posts). Advertisements were placed in locations on the mobile screen hidden under ‘See More,’ making it difficult for consumers to clearly recognize the paid nature of the content. In response, the Fair Trade Commission encouraged revisions to include disclosure phrases in the first line of the post or the first hashtag to ensure the advertisement is not concealed.
On Naver Blog, a total of 9,445 unfair advertising posts were found. The main issues were ‘inappropriate disclosure content’ (5,330 posts, 56.4%) and ‘inappropriate expression methods’ (5,002 posts, 53%). Common practices included posting phrases such as ‘written without separate compensation aside from the product or service’ as instructed by advertising agencies, or using text colors that were difficult to distinguish from the background color, making it hard for consumers to recognize the advertisement.
On YouTube, many inappropriate advertisements were found related to ‘disclosure placement’ (944 posts, 58.7%) and ‘disclosure content’ (600 posts, 37.3%). It was common for paid advertisement disclosures to be placed only in the video description box, making it difficult for consumers to notice. The Fair Trade Commission encouraged displaying advertisement disclosures in the video title or using YouTube’s ‘Includes Paid Promotion’ banner.
However, compared to the monitoring results announced in 2021, the rate of posts failing to disclose paid advertisement status significantly decreased (41.3% → 17.0%). Instead, the proportion of posts with unclear disclosure content increased. The Fair Trade Commission stated, “This is the result of continuous SNS monitoring that has encouraged voluntary correction, along with active education targeting advertising agencies and influencers to promote legal compliance within the industry. Although economic interests were disclosed, cases with unclear disclosure content have increased, so we plan to focus on inspecting these going forward.”
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