Your social media feed is probably full of stealth advertisments

It’s no secret that advertising is everywhere on social media, but when you picture those ads, you probably think of videos with the little “sponsored” text in the corner, like you might see on TikTok. But as it turns out, there’s a whole industry of advertising that’s trying to show up in your social feed without disclosing that it’s sponsored.

According to Lane Brown, features writer at New York Magazine, this is called “stealth marketing.”

“Basically anybody with something to promote, whether it's a movie trailer or a song, they will clip it into a whole bunch of little tiny social media friendly fragments and upload it at great volume to TikTok and or Instagram or Twitter using a bunch of dummy accounts,” said Brown. “The algorithms of the social media platforms interpret this as a surge of organic interest, and so they push these clips to the further to the wider user base.”

Brown wrote about stealth marketing and how even celebrities like Justin Bieber have used it. “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke to him about his reporting.

To listen to their conversation, use the media player above.