"Eating This Makes You Lose Weight"...Massive Crackdown on Influencer Accounts with False and Exaggerated Advertising

54 Accounts Identified in MFDS Special Crackdown
Requests for Post Blocking and Deletion... Investigation Also Requested

Influencer accounts that made false and exaggerated advertisements for food and cosmetics on social networking services (SNS) have been mass detected.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 20th that, as a result of a special crackdown on unfair advertising by 84 influencer accounts, illegal activities such as false and exaggerated advertisements were confirmed in 54 accounts, leading to requests for post deletions and account blocks, as well as administrative actions and investigation referrals.

Examples of false and exaggerated advertisements posted on SNS. [Photo by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety]

As the Ministry observed an increase in purchase inducement through methods like group buying on SNS, it conducted a special crackdown on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook starting last month. Upon inspecting 248 posts from 44 influencer accounts that used experience reviews to mislead consumers, 178 illegal online posts (71.8%) were found in 37 accounts (42.5%).

Violation cases included advertisements for general foods unrelated to body fat reduction claiming "I already lost 2 kg" or using "Before & After" image comparisons, as well as posts advertising foods as if they had therapeutic effects for diseases such as eczema, atopy, hair loss prevention, and adult disease prevention.

Additionally, 135 online posts from 40 accounts that could mislead consumers by causing confusion between general cosmetics and pharmaceuticals or by using expressions beyond the scope of cosmetics were inspected, resulting in 54 illegal posts (40%) detected in 17 accounts (42.5%). Many of these involved misleading advertisements such as "anti-inflammatory" claims that exceeded the efficacy of cosmetics and were mistaken for pharmaceuticals.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety emphasized that since unfair advertisements are easily encountered on SNS, consumers should be cautious not to be misled in order to prevent damage in advance.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.