The $21 billion influencer industry has gone completely off the rails

• Influencer marketing is booming, and brands spend billions to promote products with a personal touch.
• But the industry is unregulated and has problems for brands, audiences, and influencers alike.
• Influencer ads can be fraudulent, discriminatory, and unethical, and audiences have no way to push back.

It seemed like a marketer's perfect plan to get products into the hands of their target audience: pay an internet icon or local influencer to promote them to their loyal fans.

And for the better part of the last two decades, it worked like a charm.