A group called Truth in Advertising accused Justin Bieber, Reese Witherspoon, and 17 others of promoting non-fungible tokens (NFTs) (TINA.org). When someone promotes an NFT in order to get other people to invest, this is called “shilling.” The non-profit watchdog group said that they looked into the celebrities in question and found that their promotion was “an area full of lies.” TINA.org says that the celebrities’ supposed promotion stood out because they couldn’t show that they had a “material connection” with the NFTs they were promoting.
TINA.org asked the celebrities who were promoting NFTs to say what their connections were to those organisations.
Is it dangerous to shill for NFT?
In essence, NFT shilling is just marketing crypto goods. It can be as easy as sharing a link to a project. There’s nothing wrong with ads, but the people who make NFT shillings often get paid for them. People say that they hide this information and mislead the people they have power over.
For example, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused John McAfee of getting paid in secret to promote seven initial coin offerings (ICOs) in 2020.
According to TINA.org, the accused celebrities may have broken the FTC’s rules on the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising as well as the requirements for influencers.
The rule says that influencers have to make it clear what product they are promoting. So far, there has been no legal action taken against this kind of violation. But there are ways to sue these types of influencers as a group. For example, watchdog groups warned about Elon Musk because he backed Dogecoin.
Before, the SEC told investors to stay away from investment products that were backed by celebrities. The SEC said that “celebrities who recommend an investment often don’t know enough about the investment to make sure it’s a good one and follows federal securities laws.”
The SEC says that it is against the law for celebrities and other influential people to use social media to persuade their followers to buy stocks or other investments without telling their followers what their relationship is with the endorsement.
NFTs and well-known Indian people
Even famous people from India are doing NFT. Collectibles have been released as NFTs by Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth, and even Salman Khan. For example, some of Big B’s collectibles were signed old movie posters.
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