Advertising Law Blog

Despite predictions to the contrary, the first year of the Trump led FTC has been surprising to many observers on its lack of consumer protection enforcement actions.  To that end, the state attorneys general have been increasingly active in terms of enforcing their own consumer protection laws, including focusing on the social media channels.  In December, a bipartisan coalition of three dozen state attorneys general urged the social media platform operator Meta to enforce its own policies about pharmaceutical and wellness ads on Instagram and Facebook and take additional measures to prevent AI-generated weight loss content in ads.  The attorneys general urged Meta to: restrict prescription drug ads in the United States to only those that are FDA-approved; require content promoting weight loss products to clearly disclose the risks and potential side effects; and prohibit weight loss drug ads that use AI-generated content.  The state attorneys general’s action follows NAD’s recent arrangements with the consumer protection group at the National Association of Attorneys General to enforce compliance with its decisions on challenged advertising, as well as NAD’s arrangement with social media platforms (such as Meta) to bar non-compliant advertising.