Six of Poland’s best-known social media influencers have been fined by the state consumer protection agency, UOKiK, for failing to cooperate with an investigation into the labelling of advertising posts. Their total combined fines amount to almost 140,000 zloty (€30,000).
The highest, of 50,000 zloty, was received by Marek “Kruszwil” Kruszel, a YouTuber with 312,000 subscribers to his channel and over 1.1 million followers on Instagram.
The other influencers – fashion and beauty bloggers Julia “Maffashion” Kuczyńska and Marlena “Marley” Sojka, as well as Marcin “MD” Dubiel, Paweł Malinowski and Marcin Malczyński – were each fined between 4,000 and 25,000 zloty. They have the right to appeal against the decisions.
View this post on Instagram
UOKiK president Tomasz Chróstny said that they were penalised for not providing the requested documents during his office’s investigation into the labelling of advertisements.
UOKiK has been examining the profiles of the most popular influencers and their contracts, checking the terms of cooperation and arrangements with advertisers.
“Among other things, we checked what the negligence in the labelling of sponsored posts is specifically due to – when the creator is at fault and when the concealment of the nature of the advertisement is required by the client itself,” said Chróstny.
View this post on Instagram
“We counted on the goodwill of the creators, but some of them did not answer the questions we asked, avoided providing specific documents or information, or did not answer correspondence,” he added. “The lack of cooperation during the proceedings is a serious violation.”
The watchdog says that it aims to change the social media advertising market and eliminate negative practices that harm consumers. It is also spearheading a consultation with industry organisations and marketing agencies to develop recommendations for social media users regarding the labelling of commercial content.
None of the influencers fined by the authority immediately responded to a request for comment on their penalties.
Sześć decyzji Prezesa UOKiK za brak współpracy z Urzędem. Kary dla influencerów wyniosły łącznie 139 tys. zł.
‼️ Twórcy nie udzielili informacji lub nie przesłali dokumentów, których zażądał Urząd.
🔗 Komunikat ➡️ https://t.co/3uD8HiqcmZ pic.twitter.com/992nOZm5Z4
— UOKiK (@UOKiKgovPL) June 29, 2022
Main image credit: Maddi Bazzocco/Unsplash
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
