Influencer files complaint against Steyer campaign, alleging violations
WASHINGTON— A politically influential person filed a complaint against Tom Steyer’s gubernatorial campaign; He said the committee failed to disclose the disclosure requirements required by law when it was paid to meet with Steyer in March and later produced social media content from the meeting.
What’s more, he said the Steyer campaign falsely accused him of publishing paid content in support of Steyer’s primary Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra, and failing to disclose that in a complaint filed by the billionaire’s campaign this week.
Maggie Reed, who regularly posts satirical comments about politics to nearly half a million followers under the username mermaidmamamaggie on Instagram and TiKTok, said she was actually paid by Steyer’s campaign and signed an agreement prohibiting her from disclosing the payment.
He posted a video of his meeting with Steyer in March and later deleted it.
“The committee paid for political content, structured it to appear to be the organic opinion of a regular creator, and used a confidentiality agreement to prevent the public from learning the truth,” says the complaint filed Thursday with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.
Steyer’s campaign disclosed in a campaign filing that it paid the agency representing Reed $5,000 for digital advertising, but did not indicate that the payment was in connection with Reed’s meeting with Steyer or content production.
The Steyer campaign said it paid to meet with Reed but left it entirely up to Reed to decide whether to create content.
Since then, Reed has produced several videos expressing his support for Becerra, the former California congressman and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, but has said he was not paid to produce those videos and that they reflect his genuine support for Becerra’s campaign.
Becerra has been the top Democrat in recent polls in the race, maintaining a slim lead over Steyer and a firm grip on one of the top two spots in the June 2 primary that will send him to the general election in November.
Reed’s complaint is the latest barrage of back-and-forth about the use of paid influencers in the governor’s race.
Two influencers who supported Becerra but were not paid by his campaign filed a complaint last week, saying a number of influencers created paid content to support Steyer but did not disclose it in their posts.
Steyer’s campaign later filed a complaint earlier this week leveling accusations against Reed and another influencer named Jay Gonzalez, who is now a paid employee of the Becerra campaign. The complaint alleges that after joining the campaign, Gonzalez made many pro-Becerra posts and belatedly changed these posts to reveal their sponsorship.
The Becerra campaign maintained that it did not otherwise pay influencers to produce content on its behalf.
Steyer’s complaint included screenshots of an email sent to Reed’s talent agency by a gubernatorial campaign gauging his interest in producing paid content.
Although the screenshots in Steyer’s complaint do not reveal who sent the inquiry, Reed said in his complaint that the request came from a staff member of former Los Angeles Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa’s gubernatorial campaign.
Thanks to a law passed in California in 2023, social media content creators must disclose paid political content.
Influencers must self-disclose that a post they create is sponsored, but campaigns must notify them of this requirement.
Violation of the law does not trigger civil, criminal or administrative penalties, but the FPPC has the right to take violators to court and request that a judge compel compliance with the law.
In addition to Reed’s complaint, the agreement Steyer signed with his campaign stated that he must comply with all applicable state, federal and local laws, but did not specifically mention the requirement to disclose that the content he produced was sponsored.
The agreement stated that Steyer’s campaign may have to disclose the payment.
