Writing Prompt: My letter to VP Harris and my U.S. Senators: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/vicepresident/
I want to see Lina Khan stay as chair of the FTC. I approve and support the regulation of authoritarian corporate monopolies, and I am relieved that inauthentic product testimonials will be penalized.
Majority Report podcast had a segment about Lina Khan and the FTC, and more broadly about what’s at stake for public agencies and public safety regulations with regard to the upcoming elections as far as not just the president appointing agency heads and judges, but the senate majority needed to get them approved. And how corporations looking to avoid regulations bring lawsuits and then go venue shopping for pro-corporate judges and undermine the ability of regulators. (At the end of that segment they make the same points I make in my Letters to Reps guide, on how effective writing can be.) Revolving Door Project reports that they’re really going hard against the EPA in the Supreme Court shadow docket.
Writing Prompt: My letters to reps:
Corporations looking to circumvent agency regulation decisions shouldn’t be able to go judge shopping in the judicial system looking for judges most likely to be corporate friendly. Stop the venue shopping.
Like Sam Seder, I also recommend writing to VP Harris in support of Lina Khan remaining the chair of the FTC because the FTC has been doing good things now for consumer issues, such as going after monopolies and the authoritarian rule of corporate monopolies, and (as I’ve mentioned before), they’re going to start penalizing “fake and false consumer reviews and testimonials” which has become a substantial problem.
FTC (Federal Trade Commission) We’ll pay you to give our new rule a good review – By Michael Atleson August 14, 2024 As the Commission noted previously, case-by-case enforcement without civil penalty authority might not be enough to deter clearly deceptive review and testimonial practices. The Supreme Court’s decision in AMG Capital Management LLC v. FTC has hindered the FTC’s ability to seek monetary relief for consumers under the FTC Act. This rule will enhance deterrence and strengthen FTC enforcement actions.
Writing Prompt: My letter to federal and state reps:
I’m tired of wading through fake reviews and inauthentic testimonials for products and services polluting every online space. It happens not just in shopping websites, but also in message boards, forums, and even sometimes in private social groups where admins allow it for financial compensation, sometimes without disclosing that. It needs to be curtailed and disclosure of conflicts of interest should be mandatory.
Fake testimonials are a thing. People post these recommendations with natural sounding language on forums and social media so it doesn’t sound like ad copy or look like an advertisement, but it is. They can go into a forum and seemingly innocently ask a question, and then nonchalantly bring up their “personal experience” with a product, as a way of circumventing moderators who of course want to keep unpaid ads out of their spaces and rules against that. In the U.S. influencers and bloggers who do this are supposed to disclose payments, but sometimes don’t. Sometimes vendors mislead with fraudulent testimonials on their website by using quotes from quotes related to the technology from scientists on social media, and then pass them off as testimonials for a related product that the scientists never actually endorsed, and may not even know their name is on the vendor website. I call that fraudulent testimonial misrepresentation.