Wong raises ballot proposal videos and paid influencer concerns
Wong says he saw videos of the mayor promoting ballot proposals, which should be labeled as political messages paid for by taxpayers, and that with so many influencers someone is getting paid; Schiffrin says Rowland's position is that Signal group members are not paid for being in the group, but whether some have city contracts needs clarification.
So I think this would be an area for further study and clarification.
And before coming to this hearing, I'm watching the videos of the mayor promoting a ballot issue on these ballot proposals.
And that is, to me, not news that you're promoting politics.
You're telling voters.
About an issue they will be voting on in November, and that should clearly be indicated that that is a political message, and it should clearly say it is paid by the tax dollars of New York City.
And I don't think so many influencers work for free.
So it seemed to me that with so many of them out there, you know, somebody's getting paid and we're watching these propagandists.
And it's hard to distinguish them from news.
Yeah, thank you for that comment.
I mean, I think that the position of Amelia Rowland is that none of the...
those influencers on the signal group are getting paid for being on that signal group.
You know, whether some of them at some times are wearing other hats and perhaps getting that $5,000 contract with the city agency needs clarification.
I know that everybody's been sitting here for hours.
You don't really need to listen to an academic drone on.
But we did a report for the government of Bhutan years ago about advertising in newspapers.
And we studied, I think it was six different countries, to look at their regulations.
And there are exactly what you're saying, a lot of guidelines about, you know, when can images appear of the mayor?
When can they back certain things?
How close to an election?
Should they be making a statement?
How do you make sure that you're actually giving people information like...
You know, enroll your kid in kindergarten versus sort of say, hey, we're doing a great job, vote for us.