French social media stars will face the wrath of the country’s lawmakers – including heavy fines and potential two-year jail terms – if they fail to be fully transparent about digitally enhanced photos and payments for promoting schemes and products.
A widely-supported new bill will make French nationals who earn a living from their social media status legal subjects, meaning they have to be honest with their followers on platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok about whether they’ve been paid for posts.
It takes 2021 guidelines, when France’s Financial Authority joined forces with law enforcers to crack down on ‘finfluencers’ – so-called fake influencers – who financially profit from posts without being fully transparent, a step further.
The latest legislation aims to protect social media users from pursuing cosmetic enhancements with unregulated companies, as well as stop them falling foul of scam financial schemes and poor quality products.
French reality TV star Maeva Ghennam, who has 3.3 million Instagram fans, has been criticised in the past over posts promoting labiaplasty – but hasn’t been found to breach the law. New French legislation is set to force France’s social media stars to be fully transparent about deals they make to promote products
Lifestyle influencer Julia Paredes, who has 1million followers, welcomes the new legislation
French-Swiss model Nabilla Vergara, 31, is a huge star in the French-speaking world and now boasts her own beauty brand and 8.4million followers on Instagram – in 2020 she felt the wrath of increasingly tough French laws and was fined €20,000 (£17,600) for promoting a bitcoin scheme
Instagram account Vos stars en réalité (literally, ‘Your stars in reality’), run by an anonymous blogger known only as Audrey, frequently scrutinises French-speaking influencers, often with millions of followers.T
he blogger has worked with French Parliamentarians to help draft the new private member’s bill designed to stop fans of French celebrities, many who reside in Dubai, being misled online.
It’s thought the country has around 150,000 influencers making their living from social media. French reality TV star Maeva Ghennam, who has 3.3 million Instagram fans, has been criticised over posts promoting labiaplasty in the past – but hasn’t breached laws. In recent weeks, Ghennam has said she won’t have any more cosmetic enhancements.
Lifestyle influencer Julia Paredes, who has 1 million followers, welcomes the new legislation.
She told The Sunday Times that she had never actively encouraged her fans to undertake some of the cosmetic procedures she’s shared on her post, including lip fillers.
Riches: Last week, it was reported by the Khajeel Times that French influencer Vergara had snapped up a €5 million (£4.4 million) penthouse in Dubai Harbour
British-born influencer Jazz Correia, pictured with husband Laurent, was banned from Snapchat over not being explicit about being paid to promote a financial trading service
Influencer and beauty brand owner, Nabilla Vergara, has 8.4million followers on Instagram alone and is said to earn around €190,000 (£167,000) each month from her base in Dubai. Last week, it was reported by the Khajeel Times that Vergara had snapped up a €5 million (£4.4 million) penthouse in Dubai Harbour.
The French-Swiss model, 31, was amongst the first to feel France’s increasingly tough stance on social media regulation, receiving a €20,000 (£17,600) fine in 2020 after promoting a bitcoin training company on her Snapchat account. The bitcoin site claimed to offer customers an 80 per cent return on investments, which authorities questioned.
Jazz Correia, born in the UK, was banned from Snapchat in 2021 over not being explicit about being paid to promote a financial trading service.
Correia was left fuming about the sanction, saying she should have been issued with a warning about the lack of transparency before she was banned from the social media platform outright.
The private members’ bill could inspire other countries, including the UK, to be tougher on buying behaviour.
The Competition and Market Authority (CMA) currently says ‘Everyone involved in creating your content like this on social media must take responsibility to ensure all ads are labelled correctly.’
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