两名曾对汤姆·斯泰尔的加州州长竞选活动提起道德投诉的社交媒体网红，已向加州公平政治实践委员会和洛杉矶道德委员会提交新的投诉，指控尼蒂娅·拉曼的市长竞选活动向网红付费却未进行适当披露。事实证明，他们的投诉得到了洛杉矶市长卡伦·巴斯竞选活动的法律协助。上周，其投诉文件草稿的元数据显示，这些文件是在巴斯竞选活动所使用的律师事务所帮助下起草的。
Two social media influencers who filed an ethics complaint against Tom Steyer’s California gubernatorial campaign have submitted new complaints to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission and the Los Angeles Ethics Commission, accusing Nithya Raman's mayoral campaign of paying influencers without proper disclosure. Their complaints, it turns out, received a legal assist from the campaign of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. The metadata for a draft of their filings last week revealed that they had been created with the help of the law firm used by Bass' election campaign.
凯特琳·亨内西与比阿特丽斯·戈姆伯格共同提交了该投诉，她向《洛杉矶时报》承认，巴斯竞选活动引导他们联系了考夫曼法律集团，该集团协助准备了投诉文件。巴斯竞选活动表示，他们正在承担这笔法律费用，但并未就亨内西和戈姆伯格的工作向他们支付报酬。该投诉聚焦于喜剧演员兼电视名人亚当·科诺弗以及从网红转为拉曼幕僚的埃里克·程的帖子，以及众多所谓的“梗图”账号，这些账号会重新发布他人创作的内容，有时是应政治竞选活动的要求。
Kaitlyn Hennessy, who filed the complaint with Beatrice Gomberg, acknowledged to The Times that the Bass campaign steered them to the Kaufman Legal Group, which helped prepare the complaint. Bass' campaign said it is picking up the tab for the legal work but wasn't paying Hennessy and Gomberg for their efforts. The complaint focused on posts by comedian and TV personality Adam Conover and influencer-turned-Raman staffer Eric Cheng, along with a host of so-called “meme” accounts, which repost content created by others, sometimes at the behest of political campaigns.
拉曼竞选活动表示其并未做错任何事，并否认程存在任何不当行为。科诺弗也否认有任何不当行为。据《洛杉矶时报》咨询的法律专家称，巴斯竞选活动为这些投诉承担法律费用的决定不太可能引发道德问题，前提是竞选活动在其披露报告中报告这些支出，该竞选活动表示打算这样做。洛杉矶道德委员会前主席杰弗里·达尔表示：“只要竞选活动在报告其支出时保持透明，竞选活动让律师代表竞选活动或经他人知情同意代表他人提起道德投诉，本身并无不妥。”
The Raman campaign said it has done nothing wrong and denied any wrongdoing on behalf of Cheng. Conover also denied any wrongdoing. The Bass campaign's decision to cover legal costs for the complaints is unlikely to pose ethics issues, according to legal experts consulted by The Times, provided the payments are reported by the campaign in its disclosure reports, which the campaign said it intends to do. "As long as a campaign is transparent in reporting its expenditures, there's nothing inherently wrong for a campaign to have its lawyers file an ethics complaint for the campaign or somebody else with their informed consent," said Jeffrey Daar, a former president of the L.A.
科诺弗为拉曼发布的推广帖子，此前已因前洛杉矶市议会候选人迪伦·肯德尔在五月提起的道德投诉而受到审查。
Ethics Commission. Conover’s posts promoting Raman already attracted scrutiny in ethics complaints filed in May by former L.A.
针对这些投诉的调查，由 FPPC（加州公共政策委员会）和洛杉矶道德委员会负责进行，目前仍在进行中。Conover 向《洛杉矶时报》表示，竞选团队支付给与他有关联的公司的款项并非用于他的个人社交媒体帖子，而是用于他的员工为 Raman 的竞选团队提供的视频制作服务。这些款项最初在 Raman 的竞选文件中被描述为用于在线广告的费用，后来被修改为“用于视频制作服务”。
City Council candidate Dylan Kendall. The investigations into those complaints, to the FPPC and L.A. Ethics Commission, are ongoing. Conover told The Times that payments made by the campaign to a company connected to him were not for his posts but for video work one of his staffers did for Raman’s campaign. They initially were described in Raman's campaign filings as payments for online ads but later were amended to say they were for video production services.
Raman 竞选团队的发言人表示，Cheng 所获得的报酬是针对他为竞选团队所做的工作，而非他在个人社交媒体上发布的帖子；他们已经获得了洛杉矶道德委员会工作人员的指导，以确保相关信息披露符合规定。该发言人还补充说，Cheng 在正式入职前就自愿在个人社交媒体上公开了自己将加入该竞选团队的消息。
A spokesperson for Raman's campaign said Cheng is paid for work he does for the campaign, not for posts on his personal social media account, and that it had gotten guidance from L.A. Ethics Commission staff on Cheng's disclosure requirements to ensure it was in compliance. The spokesperson added that Cheng voluntarily posted on his social media account that he would be joining the campaign before his employment began.
洛杉矶道德委员会和 FPPC 拒绝就这些投诉的具体进展或 Kendall 之前提交的投诉发表评论。Loyola Marymount 大学法学院的教授 Jessica Levinson 曾担任过该道德委员会的主席，她指出：由于道德投诉的消息可能在相关事实尚未得到充分评估之前就产生政治影响，因此在选举周期接近尾声时需要更加谨慎地审查相关文件。
The L.A. Ethics Commission and FPPC declined to comment on the status of the complaint or the prior one brought by Kendall. Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Marymount University's law school who also previously served as the president of the ethics commission, said that because news of an ethics complaint can have a political impact before its merits have been evaluated, it is important to view filings late in an election cycle with greater scrutiny.
她说：“每当我在选举临近时看到有人提出道德投诉，我总会停下来仔细思考一下。”加州是美国少数要求社交媒体影响者公开是否接受过政治竞选团队付费以制作内容的州之一；洛杉矶的法规更为严格：政治团体必须将这一要求告知那些接受付费服务的创作者。上个月新通过的州法律赋予 FPPC 将涉嫌违规者移送执法部门处理的权力，违规者每次可能被处以最高 5,000 美元的罚款。
"Whenever I see that there's an ethics complaint filed this close to the election, I always pause for a minute," she said. California is one of the few states in the country that require social media influencers to disclose if they have been paid by a political campaign to create content. L.A. rules are even more strict. Political groups are required to notify paid creators of the requirement. New state legislation signed into law last month gives the FPPC the power to refer alleged violators to law enforcement for possible misdemeanor charges, and violations can be penalized with a fine of up to $5,000 per instance.
根据相关法规，道德委员会有权对违规行为处以最高15,000美元的罚款，或违规金额的三倍作为处罚。然而，对于由联邦候选人或政治委员会赞助的付费社交媒体内容，目前并没有类似的监管规定。上个月，FPPC（联邦政治竞选委员会）完成了对斯泰耶（Steyer）竞选活动的调查，认定其严格遵守了所有相关规定；不过委员会也指出，包括拉曼（Raman）的工作人员程（Cheng）在内的几位社交媒体影响者并未如实披露来自斯泰耶竞选活动的资金支付情况。
The L.A. Ethics Commission can levy fines of up to $15,000 or three times the amount of money at issue. There are no such rules for paid social media content sponsored by a federal candidate or political committee. The FPPC last month concluded its investigation into Steyer’s campaign and found that it had properly followed the rules, but it did say that several social media influencers, including Cheng, the Raman staffer, had not properly disclosed payments from the Steyer campaign.
亨内西（Hennessy）表示，由于担心这类未公开披露的社交媒体内容可能对选举过程产生破坏性影响，她与戈姆伯格（Gomberg）仍在继续调查全国各地的竞选活动中的类似违规行为，其中包括洛杉矶市长选举。亨内西说：“这真的让我非常失望——因为这类行为会对竞选结果产生重大影响；当人们看到这些未公开披露的广告内容时，他们根本意识不到自己实际上正在观看的是广告。”
Hennessy and Gomberg are continuing to investigate improperly disclosed social media posts in races across the country, including the L.A. mayoral race, because of their concerns about the corrosive impact this content can have on the electoral process, Hennessy said. “It's really disappointing to me, because you see how this impacts races,” Hennessy said. “When you have this undisclosed content, people don't understand that what they're watching is an ad.”