Some were sponsored by Sony, and others were written by BuzzFeed staffers, Andrew Sullivan of The Dish reports.
BuzzFeed clearly states if a post is sponsored on the article page itself. But once you're on a sponsored post page, it's not very clear if the additional content it's promoting in the sidebar is sponsored or not, Sullivan writes.
Take a look at the screenshot below, and try to guess which of the "Top Posts" are sponsored by Sony.
 Screenshot |
It turns out that they're all sponsored posts.
"Once you slip into the advertorial vortex at Buzzfeed, everything that is advertizing appears as non-advertizing," Sullivan writes. "Just keep clicking. When you’re on Buzzfeed proper (if that’s the right term), the sponsored posts are delineated, ethically, as I noted above, by an off-white color background that subtly makes them different and an acknowledgment of the sponsor."