California to Fine Bloggers Up to $5,000 for Undisclosed Political Ads
Gavin Newsom signed law AB 1130: fines of up to $5,000 for each undisclosed paid political post by a blogger. The trigger was the Tom Steyer case.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed law AB 1130, which for the first time introduces real penalties for bloggers who hide paid political posts. According to The New York Times, regulators can now fine violators up to $5,000 per incident and refer materials to law enforcement.
Formally, the requirement to disclose paid political content had already been in place in the state. But until now it carried neither fines nor criminal prosecution — the rule effectively functioned as a declaration. AB 1130 moves it into the realm of real enforceable regulation.
The impetus for tightening the rules was the case of billionaire Tom Steyer. In early 2026, he ran in the California gubernatorial election as a candidate of the US Democratic Party and paid dozens of bloggers for posts about his campaign online. Most of them did not disclose the payments. The state had no effective tool to influence them.
The new law closes this loophole. The maximum penalty — $5,000 for each separate violation — means that a series of undisclosed posts multiplies the total fine. Additionally, the regulator is entitled to initiate referral of the case to law enforcement.
California is not the first. A similar law on disclosure of political advertising is already in effect in Texas. Similar bills are now being considered in other US states as well.
For brands and agencies, the signal is clear: in the US, influencer marketing in politics is moving from the zone of 'gentlemen's agreements' into the zone of regulated advertising. Publishing without a sponsorship label now carries direct financial risk not only for the advertiser, but for the content creator as well.
At the same time, the opposite trend is also developing in the US — large-scale paid social media campaigns in defense of specific industries. It was previously reported that a group of activists funded by billionaires from the artificial intelligence industry is launching a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign in Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Its goal is to convince residents of the benefits of placing data centers near their homes.
Source: AdIndex; Source: nytimes.com
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