Several high-profile Instagram accounts posted sponsored content for Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign on Wednesday afternoon.
World Star Hip Hop, Funny Hood Vidz, Banger Buddy, Nugget, and Wasted, all accounts with millions of followers, posted ads in the form of fake “relatable” tweets and edited videos.
The posts do not make use of Instagram’s official system for disclosing that money has changed hands. The company has said that all creators posting sponsored content on behalf of presidential campaigns must use the official branded content tool. Branded content is a form of advertising.
Many of the accounts the Bloomberg campaign has advertised on are private, which means that followers must request to see the accounts and be approved by the account owners.
“Going private” is a known growth hack among meme pages. When a follower sends someone a post from that account, the receiver must request to follow the page to see it.
In 2018, many of Instagram’s top meme pages locked down their accounts to gain followers in this way. Meme pages often flip between private and public. Some use auto-accept programs to manage their flow of followers.
Large meme pages also set their accounts to private to avoid scrutiny, denying follow requests from journalists or from people they suspect may report the account for violating terms of service. After posting a Bloomberg ad on Wednesday, Funny Hood Vidz flipped its account from public to private, locking out journalists or others who sought to view the ad. (The account is now public again.)
The practice has become so widespread that it has become a pain point with users.
After Josh Constine, a reporter for TechCrunch, spurred a debate about the practice on Twitter on Tuesday, Adam Mosseri, the chief executive of Instagram, replied that “the current state is definitely not great, so we’re looking into a few ideas.”
“It’s not like we just noticed that large meme accounts often go private,” Mr. Mosseri wrote in another tweet. “You’ll probably think this is crazy, it just hasn’t bubbled up as the next most important thing to do, we’ve been more focused on Stories, Direct, creative tools, bullying, elections integrity, etc.”