Wong explains his bill's intent and asks whether CFB rules cover influencers
Wong says traditional reporters ask tough questions while influencers repeat talking points, which is propaganda, and his bill aims to ensure the public knows content is paid for with tax dollars; Melillo distinguishes the elections part of the charter from the public officials' use of resources section and says CFB rules already cover campaign disclaimers.
Thank you, Chair.
I just wanted to tell you the spirit of my bill.
Of course.
See, traditional reporters, they come to City Hall, they talk, they ask questions, tough questions.
Yes.
Like even to me or to the mayor, to the public advocate, and we get challenged.
And that's the way it worked with traditional media.
And they do not simply take the city horse talking points and repeat them.
And it appears to me that's what the influencers are doing.
And that's not, to me, that's not news.
That's propaganda.
So the spirit of my bill is that when the public sees these messages,
They have the right to know this is paid for, paid by our tax dollars.
And though no one's running a campaign, or if the mayor's doing this, or if I'm doing this right now, we're not running a campaign, but the public has to know.
So my question to you is, you seem to say that this is already covered by existing laws of campaign finance board, but I don't see it that covers influencers.
Can you talk about that?
And then I'll lead to my part two of my question.
Yes.
Let me draw a distinction between two separate parts of the charter, because what your bill would modify, and that's T2026-2553, what that would modify is the elections part of the charter.
specific to elections.
So what that would not cover is what City Hall is doing with influencers that is the issue for the hearing today.
The other three pieces of legislation being considered would modify a different section of the charter, which is about public officials'use of resources.
And that's where you find the 90-day mailing blackout provision that elected officials must follow before an election.
So when we're saying, and it's not that we disagree with the spirit or the intent of your bill, we're just saying it's already covered in our rules, and we don't necessarily feel like the charter has to be amended to reflect it because it is covered in our rules.
And I'll just state this very quickly as like a matter of something we always consider when we're thinking about what needs to go in the charter or the admin code or in the CFB rules.
Generally, I think it's okay to direct the CFB to do things at a high level, but not get super specific about the way technology works because it changes so quickly.
So the way this would regulate paid-for-by notices, which is the way our rules currently regulate it, that could become a very stale piece of the charter if something about the social media platforms were to change.
So, for example, there's a requirement for paid-for-by notifications in the comments section.
What if Instagram removed comments?
or the ability to add comments to posts.
Then we would have to think about what is a different sort of disclosure regime that we would advise campaigns, but that section of the charter would become out of date.
So generally, we like to align on the intent of things and then have these conversations about where we think it should go and what the CFB should be directed to do.