| The Real Housewife you follow on TikTok? She's a lobbyist. So is the doula, the Nascar driver, the makeup artist, the physical therapist, and the Olympic athlete. They all work for the Beltway-based ad-tech firm Urban Legend, the subject of Benjamin Wofford's rollicking and disquieting new feature. Founded in 2020 by Ory Rinat, a former Trump administration senior staffer, the startup has built the Exchange, a platform that connects advertisers with an army of 700 influencers from every niche of society who are paid to peddle not products, but political ideologies. With scant rules from both the FTC and FEC governing social media, this new model of political influence is "a system that is—by design—ripe for abuse," says UC Berkeley computer science professor Hany Farid. Many of the firm's influencers don't disclose that their posts—which urge follows to sign a petition, say, or read an op-ed—are paid, blurring the line between knowing what's a real opinion and what's a paid one. And while Urban Legend, like its emerging competitors, touts transparency and trust, the company has remained close-lipped about who its clients and influencers are and what its influencers are paid to say—until now. Zak Jason | Senior Associate Editor |
The Report: The Democratic Senate: Open for Business
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