The Machinima app on Xbox One.
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FTC settles with Machinima for paying YouTube influencers to endorse Xbox One

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

The Federal Trade Commission has settled charges with Machinima, which had been accused of deceptive advertising by paying “influencers” to post YouTube videos that endorsed Microsoft’s Xbox One video game console.

The FTC charged that the influencers failed to adequately disclose that they were being paid for seemingly objective opinions. The case is a wakeup call for the use of social media to endorse products, as many people trust online video producers and streamers similarly to how they’ve trusted traditional media.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.