American influencers have been secretly paid to promote political campaigns, according to a report by The New York Times. Josh Greene, a left-wing influencer with a podcast that has 800,000 followers, promoted a dozen candidates during modest local elections and highly publicized Democratic primaries for the upcoming mid-term elections on November 3. However, he does not always inform his subscribers that he is paid to express his support. Greene is far from the only one. Some candidates prefer to pay smaller creators for multiple videos or even dozens through user-generated content creation agencies, or UGC. The New York Times provides the example of Paige Dunmeyer, who posted a dozen TikTok videos to support Tom Steyer's campaign for governor of California. However, she was seen complaining about the cost of living in Michigan and encouraging internet users to vote for Haley Stevens, an unsuccessful Democratic primary candidate for the November Senate elections. On a third account, she spoke about purchasing power in Wisconsin. Despite this, Paige Dunmeyer lives in Texas. The young woman is employed by a content creation agency called SideShift. She received $1,320 for the advertisement she produced for Tom Steyer. According to internal records accessed by The New York Times, SideShift paid her more than $30,000 in total for various political and commercial communication campaigns. At least 87 people registered on SideShift promoted Tom Steyer for the position of governor of California, as well as Haley Stevens and James Talarico, respectively Democratic candidates for the Michigan and Texas Senate elections. Most of the time, without any mention of any compensation. SideShift has stated that it encourages its users to follow the "existing transparency rules" and calls for clearer laws to regulate the obligation to disclose paid content on social networks. The practice raises questions about the influence of social media on political discourse and the need for greater transparency in online political advertising. While some platforms have guidelines about disclosing paid content, enforcement can be inconsistent, leaving room for ambiguity in how such promotions are presented to the public.