FTC: YouTubers plugged Warner Bros. games for pay

LOS ANGELES — YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and other social media are ripe with popular online "influencers," who plug products for companies, in return for a fee, to their millions of followers.

But a new settlement from the Federal Trade Commission with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment could change that practice — or at least make it better marked.

YouTube's Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, as well as other influencers, plugged Warner Bros.' Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor console game, to fans, but didn't clearly disclose the sponsorship, says the FTC. The videos received over 5.5 million views.

The FTC didn't disclose the other influencers beyond Sweden-based PewDiePie, who has the most subscribers of any YouTube channel at over 46 million.

Under the proposed FTC order, Warner Bros. is barred from failing to make such disclosures in the future and "cannot misrepresent that sponsored content, including gameplay videos, are the objective, independent opinions of video game enthusiasts or influencers," says the FTC.

“Consumers have the right to know if reviewers are providing their own opinions or paid sales pitches,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a news release.

According to the FTC, Warner Bros. paid many influencers upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, and it faults Warner Bros. for not requiring the influencers to clearly disclose the sponsorship.

"Warner Bros. instructed influencers to place the disclosures in the description box appearing below the video. Because Warner Bros. also required other information to be placed in that box, the vast majority of sponsorship disclosures appeared 'below the fold,' visible only if consumers clicked on the 'Show More' button in the description box. In addition, when influencers posted YouTube videos on Facebook or Twitter, the posting did not include the 'Show More' button, making it even less likely that consumers would see the sponsorship disclosures."

The PewDiePie sponsorship isn't the first time the FTC has gone after online plugging for pay. The YouTube gaming network  Machinima settled with the FTC for in 2015 for undisclosed promotions of the Xbox One.