Social media influencers must provide hard-to-miss disclosures during promotions: Consumer affairs secretary

Consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh on Monday said that in light of the recently-notified norms related to advertisements and promotions on social media, it is important that the disclosures be mentioned clearly.

Telling the influencer community to ensure that “disclosures must be hard to miss and not mixed with a group of hashtags or links,” Singh said that for endorsements in pictures, disclosures should be superimposed over the image, and for endorsements in videos, disclosures should be made in both audio and video formats. In live streams, disclosures should be continuously displayed and prominently placed.

Industry estimates suggest that there are over 75 crore internet users in India, of which 50 crore are social media users.