Nithya Ramans social media lovefest under fire over secret payment claims: Fake moral superiority

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman‘s campaign has been accused of secretly paying social media stars to promote her – while allegedly keeping voters in the dark about who was cashing in.Influencers Kaitlyn Hennessy and Beatrice Gomberg have filed complaints with city and state ethics watchdogs alleging Raman’s campaign failed to properly disclose payments connected to a comedian’s company, a campaign staffer with a large following, and several anonymous meme pages.“When people go through their feeds, they need to know that what they’re seeing is either paid or not,” Hennessy told the California Post.California law requires social media influencers paid by campaigns to create promotional content for or against a candidate to disclose the sponsorship.Los Angeles imposes additional disclosure requirements.The complaint, obtained by the Post, alleges a “sustained” effort to conceal who was being paid.At the center of the allegations is comedian Adam Conover, creator and star of “Adam Ruins Everything,” who has more than 400,000 Instagram followers.The complaint says Raman’s campaign paid his company, SwizzleCorp, during a period when Conover was posting in support of Raman.Campaign finance reports initially labeled the payments “online ads” before they were amended to “video production services,” according to the complaint.The change is also documented in reporting by the Los Angeles Times.“If you’re being paid by a campaign or a committee, it’s the law, you need to disclose,” Hennessy said.“But even ethically, why are you running from that?”Los Angeles political consultant Michael Trujillo put it more bluntly, saying the “influencer industrial complex don’t get to have fake moral superiority while being paid off.”“If they want to post about the candidate or cause they love, great, but the second they accept $1, they need to disclose every post as being paid for by the campaign,” Trujillo said.Raman’s campa...