Political influencer spending exploded in 2024, and the legal framework governing it is essentially nonexistent. Because campaigns pay creators directly rather than the platforms hosting the content, most of it sits outside FEC jurisdiction entirely.
They tried to address this in its 2024 rule update and ultimately punted. Congress isn't positioned to act either, which leaves the platforms, and platform policies are uneven. TikTok officially bans paid political content but struggles to enforce it. Meta has overlapping rules spread across multiple pages that creators routinely sidestep.
The result is a multi-million dollar influence operation running mostly in the dark heading into November. For those of us working in political communications, this is the regulatory gap we think will define the next cycle.
