mormon influencers and transparency on social media
Facebook and Instagram have taken new action to prevent disinformation and increase transparency on their sites around the 2020 US election and COVID-19 pandemic. These efforts, in my mind, veer away from censorship because they provide context and information about what is being posted, without taking it down outright. Social media is an effective tool for information manipulation and spreading misinformation, so it is important that social media platforms make an effort to keep users informed about the source of the media they’re consuming, as well as posts that are potentially misleading or simply false.
However I believe these sites are failing to address the lack of transparency related to religious posting and persuasion on their sites. In my opinion, there is a need for disclosure when you are participating in a large marketing campaign. This is required by the FTC when a product or service, and money are involved, but what if you are marketing your religion? Religious campaigns like those organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have influence on users that they may not be aware of and thus are susceptible to being brought into a religious ideology without their consent.
A problem with this advertising is that It’s not just someone sharing their local church (as the influencers often make it sound), but it is a coordinated advertising campaign that should be disclosed on some level to social media users. If an influencer is required to disclose brand partnerships, I believe that this qualifies as a brand partnership with the church and should be disclosed. Here’s where it gets tricky, Mormon Leaks alleges that these influencers are in fact being paid for their participation in these campaigns, but this is obviously disputable. Even if no money is changing hands I believe that there should be some form of disclosure involved stating that this is a coordinated effort by a large religious organization. If money is involved, this can become part of an FTC disclosure issue. If not, the posts should be prefaced with a small pop up warning, like those utilized by Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter recently in regards to the election and the pandemic. This is a simple way to keep social media users informed and aware, without infringing on freedom of speech or religious freedom.
An example of this marketing is evident in a leaked newsletter from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints entitled “Influencer Insider,” which is available online at Mormon Leaks. The newsletter shares the plan for an Easter marketing campaign entitled #PrinceOfPeace. The newsletter highlights the values of LDS that it would like influencers to share and outlines a posting schedule for members to follow.
While the FTC can regulate advertising practices for products, it is much less clear to users when a religion is being advertised. Prominent Mormon blogger Rachel Parcell received a letter from the FTC in 2017 for her failure to disclose ads on her blog, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. She now tags items as “gifted” or “ad” to follow the rules. But around Easter weekend, she posted a #PrinceofPeace story without any indication she was doing this at the direction of the Church.
Style blogger A Slice of Style additionally posted a #PrinceofPeace photo to her Instagram feed to her seventy five thousand followers, also without mentioning that this was part of a coordinated campaign on behalf of the Church and not a message from her personally.
These influencers with massive amounts of followers show the way social media has been inundated with depictions of the LDS lifestyle. This has a simple explanation from the church itself: documentation and journaling are part of the culture. LDS women are encouraged to keep records of their life which is a natural segue to blogging. However keeping an online record of your life as a means of documentation is much different than the current blogging culture, where social media posts and blog posts are monetized and often used to reflect a “highlight reel” or images of a perfect life.
Alice Gregory discusses this in her article “Why So Many of Your Favorite Beauty Personalities are Mormon,” and notes that these bloggers “make Mormonism not just normal- but enviable.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints remains the fastest growing religion in the United States according to the latest US Religious Census. The religion is criticized for its conservative values and history of racist and sexist actions, which includes discrimination against Black Americans as Church members.
If Instagrammers continue to post religious messaging on behalf of the LDS Church without any warning to the public, it may set a dangerous precedent in how popular accounts can influence public opinion in the area of religion.
(I believe social media is used in a negative way by some parties in every religion, culture, group, that wants to influence others or raise attention to their cause. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is being used as an example here. The LDS Church is just an example to illustrate how insidious faith based advertising can be on social media, because of its funded, coordinated, top level efforts to advertise the faith, and because so many Mormon women have made full time careers out of social media, becoming successful influencers.)
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