The FTC's fake-followers rule targets the trade, not the persona

The persona

The rule targeted here addresses a market for fake metrics, not any one account. On 14 August 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced a final rule prohibiting the sale or purchase of fake indicators of social media influence, defined to include followers or views generated by a bot or a hijacked account. The rule reaches whoever sells or buys those indicators for a virtual-influencer account exactly as it reaches any other account, since the prohibited conduct is the transaction in fabricated metrics, not the nature of the account receiving them.

What the documents establish

The rule's published text, at 16 CFR § 465.8 as it appears in the Federal Register, makes it 'an unfair or deceptive act or practice' to sell or distribute, or to purchase or procure, fake indicators of social media influence that a party knew or should have known were fake and that materially misrepresent commercial influence. The Federal Register document defines 'indicators of social media influence' broadly to include followers, subscribers, views, likes, and similar counts used by the public to assess influence, and the FTC's press release states the rule takes effect 60 days after publication.

Character versus company

A virtual influencer's displayed follower count is, under this rule, an indicator like any other: what the rule prohibits is knowingly manufacturing or trading in a fake version of that count, not anything about the character whose profile displays it. Liability under § 465.8 runs to the seller or buyer of the fake indicators, meaning an operator or an engagement-inflation vendor, never to the persona itself, which has no capacity to sell or purchase anything under the rule's own terms.

What to watch

Neither document states how the rule interacts with an operator's own reported engagement figures for a virtual persona, a distinct question from bot-purchased followers; a persona's operator-reported metrics are a separate claim this rule does not, by its text, address. It is worth watching for an early enforcement action naming a virtual-influencer account or its operator specifically, since the FTC's announcement does not cite one.

• Does an enforcement action under § 465.8 exist yet involving a virtual-influencer account's followers or engagement?
• How does the rule's fake-indicator ban differ from scrutiny of an operator's own reported audience figures?
• What did the FTC's underlying rulemaking record say about accounts run by companies rather than individuals?

The rule polices a transaction in fabricated numbers, leaving the separate question of how an operator itself describes a persona's real audience to other disclosure and advertising rules entirely.