A judicial decision for the example? The Versailles Criminal Court is scheduled for this Tuesday, July 8, its decision on the RyM Renom influencer, on Tuesday, July 8, deceptive commercial practices judged in June.
The young woman, who has almost two million subscribers on Instagram, continued promoted, between May and November 2022 in The Yvelines, several products (glasses, shoes, children’s clothing, tea …) omitting explicitly mentioning that it was remunerated by these services. He also appeared for having published in Instagram stories praising the merits of subcutaneous injections, while these surgical practices were not carried out by a doctor.
Rym Renom, who lives in Bali (Indonesia), had been sentenced in his absence to a year in prison in this file. He had opposed his conviction, which had led to a new trial. During the latter, the Prosecutor’s Office requested a five -month judgment in suspended prison and a fine of 25,000 euros against the influencer.
For several years, the authorities have been trying to fight these ads carried out by influential people for injections and other aesthetic medicine services carried out illegally. But what efficiency?
Important health risks
Professional organizations, victims and complainants regularly report the danger of practices such as injections to swelling lips or to fill wrinkles, when doctors do not do them.
Between August and September 2024, eight women had to be hospitalized because they had serious symptoms of botulism, a severe neurological disease, after receiving Botox injections carried out by people not qualified in a center in the Paris region.
Evil to hyaluronic acid injections can cause necrosis, which may require amputation, loss of vision, neurological disorders …
Depending on the order of doctors, illegal medical and surgical acts for Cosmers are experiencing a disturbing growth in France. In 2024, the number of reports to the order reached a record of 128, against 123 in 2023 and 62 in 2022.
“Injections between the kitchen and the living room”
The development of these illegal businesses has been favored by the ads made by certain influences in social networks. This is part that brought Rym renown in court on Tuesday. In 2022, the influencer who announces a “doctor” who was not a doctor, was in the process of receiving Botox injections in the front.
These Instagram stories resemble those made by many other influential for these services. We often see a woman, claiming a aestheticist or even a doctor, who offers botox injections or hyaluronic acid in an apartment or even at home. The influential ones highlight offers at attractive prices, often well below those of the market.
“We are talking about ads for women who inject between the kitchen and the living room,” Deplora Jean-Baptiste Boisseau, a member of the victims of the Avi influencers and co-founder of the Signal Drilling site.
A small applied law
In 2023, deputies wanted to end all these problematic practices, completely prohibiting the influencers of advertising of medicine or cosmetic surgery, even carried out by real doctors.
A lunar exchange that took place on June 22 in the National Assembly illustrates the void that still exists on these issues. That day, the representatives of the DGCCRF, a service of the Ministry of the Economics responsible for the repression of fraud, were interviewed by the Tiktok’s psychological effects commission. The Commission chaired by Deputy Arthur Delaport, who focused law 2023 on the regulation of influencers.
When asked about the means of which the DGCCRF has to combat the fraudulent content of the influencers, the representatives explain that if the 2023 law prohibits the influencers of any announcement for cosmetic surgery, “nobody is authorized, in control police matters, about these provisions of the law.” Clearly, the prohibition exists well, but no one is responsible for controlling that no one goes beyond and, if necessary, to inflict administrative sanctions.
Given this illicit content, DGCCRF researchers can only be transferred to justice. But in 2024, according to the figures presented during this hearing, the DGCCRF only made 13 reports to justice, for all the crimes identified and, therefore, not only the promotion of medicine or cosmetic surgery. With BFMTV.com, he confirmed that he has noticed, in 2024, cases of “promoting acts of surgery by unqualified people” of influential people, without saying more about their number or nature.
Drifts always scored
Alert launchers confirm that the stories that promote false injectors have not disappeared. “There was a break for a year, which is surely an effect of the law of influence that has been terrifying. But since mid-2014, it has resumed more beautiful,” said Jean-Baptiste Boisseau.
“I have the impression that almost nothing has changed,” Abunda Audrey Chippaux abounds, behind the Instagram account actually, which alerts influencers scams. The author of the book Behind the filter, research on the influence system It also points out many ads for doctors abroad, in Türkiye in particular, which cannot guarantee real postoperative monitoring.
In April, for example, the influencer Assia Lynne, followed by almost 300,000 people in Tiktok, announced a British company there that “the BBL tour” (Brazilian bumper lifting, an operation that consists of increasing the volume of the buttocks when injecting fat taken from another area of the body) in Europe. The young woman highlighted a very low price compared to those who are normally practiced, ensuring that they were “real doctors.” An affirmation that, however, it is impossible to verify.
Jean-Baptiste Boisseau believes that the problem not only remains in this legislative vacuum that prevents the DGCCRF from pronouncing sanctions towards these influential ones: “The problem is the reaction of the authorities as a whole,” explains this spokesman for the AVI collective, requesting a strong response.
“As long as we have points on the license, we can allow ourselves to drive quickly,” he also illustrates Audrey Chippaux. In the absence of strong sanctions, he strives to make pedagogy in their own networks: “People must understand that it is not because they see these pubs that are authorized.” It remains to be seen if Rym Renom’s trial will serve as an example for his colleagues.
Source: BFM TV
