France approves a law that prohibits ‘influencers’ from promoting advice on aesthetic medicine and cryptocurrencies

June 2 (Portaltic/EP) –

France has approved a law that defines and regulates the activity of ‘influencers’ in which these content creators are prohibited from promoting dangerous diets, advice on cosmetic surgery and cryptocurrencies.

The objective of this norm is to regulate the use that these users give to platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, in order to fight and end bad practices that they can carry out taking advantage of his influence on other people.

with this lawIn addition, it has been possible to identify several necessary measures both to support ‘influencers’ and to protect consumers, as recognized in March by the French Ministry of Economy and Finance through Twitter.

The deputies Arthur Delaporte and Stéphane Vojetta presented this bill on January 31, 2023 and the National Assembly approved it unanimously on March 30 in its first reading, while the Senate, which introduced a series of modifications, did so on March 9. May, just as you remember Fri Post.

Finally, the National Assembly has approved it unanimously on May 31, 2023 and it was this Thursday, June 1, when the Senate has definitively approved it and also unanimously. The next step in this process is its promulgation in the official gazette of the French State.

This text legally recognizes the activity of commercial ‘influencers’ in electronic media, and defines them as natural or legal persons who, “in exchange for compensationcommunicate to the public by electronic means content intended to promote, directly or indirectly, goods, services or that for any reason exercise the activity of commercial influence by electronic means.

This law specifies that, when this activity is carried out by a person under 16 years of age, it must be their employer who assumes the responsibilities of the content that these creators publish on online platforms.

The legal text includes a section dedicated to promotion prohibitions, and which specifies that ‘influencers’ may not exercise “commercial influence activity by electronic means”, “directly or indirectly”, when they endanger the protection of public health through the promulgation of information on techniques, methods and aesthetic, pharmacological and surgical treatments.

On the other hand, with this new law, ‘influencers’ will not be able to promote products that can be consumed or contain, even partially, nicotine, nor will they have the right to issue therapeutic prescriptions.

TRANSPARENCY IN PUBLICATIONS

This regulation also clarifies that it is prohibited for people who carry out the activity of commercial influence by electronic means can directly or indirectly promote financial products and services, including those related to digital assets.

Hence, it is also illegal to invite other users to establish a relationship with them through a contact form or request additional information to carry out operations related to cryptocurrencies.

With the entry into force of this law, ‘influencers’ will also not be able to share content that includes interactions with animals, in addition to special care with gambling promotionso that their ads do not reach underage users.

This text also includes the obligations related to the promotion of certain goods and services and insists that this must be clearly indicated with the word ‘Advertising’, so that users know what content it is about.

The ‘influencers’ must also add information about the type of images they share, so that they will be obliged to indicate that an image is retouched if its silhouette or face has been modified in its contents.

In case of using audiovisual content generated by artificial intelligence (AI), these content creators must also add the indicative ‘Virtual images’.

SANCTIONS

This law determines, finally, that in case of committing an infraction with the provisions of it, these users may receive fines of up to 300,000 euros and two years in prison in case of carrying out deceptive commercial practices.

Also from now on, ‘influencers’ will be penalized if they promote false health services, alcoholic beverages, financial services, sports betting and gambling on their profiles, with fines of up to 100,000 euros.

In this case, they can also be prohibited from carrying out their activity, either temporarily or permanently, in addition to being denied access to these ‘online’ platforms.

On the other hand, if these content creators do not insert a label that reflects that a filter has been used or their photos and videos have been touched up, they would receive a fine of up to 37,500 euros.

This Ministry has commented, finally, that a good practice guide for ‘influencers’ has been drawn up, which integrates their fiscal, social and regulatory rights and obligations.

DIGITAL SERVICES LAW

Apart from the implementation of this law, it should be remembered that there is the Digital Services Law (DSA), a digital project of the European Union in which France participates.

It is a set of mandatory rules that aims to establish rules to hold digital platforms responsible for the dissemination of harmful or illegal content.

It also stresses that they must fight against this type of content that includes racist attacks, child pornography images, the sale of illegal substances or the distribution of false information, in order to protect consumers.

Yes ok the obligations of these digital companies will enter into force on February 17, 2024, the platforms and search engines of providers -such as Instagram, Twitter or Google- will be affected as of August 25 of this year.

The DSA will affect not only the social networks and platforms used by more than 45 million Europeans per month, but also Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Cloud Computing.