“I made the mistake of consenting to have my name appear in a very awkward column, which I didn’t even read before publication.” In a tweet on Sunday, March 26, the youtuber Squeezie disassociated himself from a text that he had signed, published a few hours earlier in the JDDlike several other signatories.
The name of the most followed videographer in France was placed together with those of 150 influencers at the bottom of a platform critical of the influence regulation law debated on March 28 in the National Assembly. Since then, several of them have reconsidered their adherence to this text, and have expressed their disagreement on various aspects.
• Why this forum?
This forum arises as a bill to “fight against scams and excesses of influencers on social networks” will be debated on Tuesday in the Assembly, led by the deputies Stéphane Vojetta (Renaissance) and Arthur Delaporte (Socialist – Nupes) . It intends to further regulate the sector, following a series of controversies in which influencers have been accused of promoting scams or dangerous products.
This law aims to standardize the requirements for promoting products online, subjecting the approximately 150,000 French influencers to the same rules as those for traditional advertising. In its current version, the text prohibits, for example, the promotion of cosmetic surgery and regulates advertisements related to financial products and services and alcohol associations, applying the rules provided by the Evin law to influencers.
Remember the obligation to clearly mention paid companies and requires the signing of a contract. Measures are also provided to protect minors under 16 years of age, who must obtain prior authorization to be employed by a company specialized in commercial influence.
• What does this forum contain?
This was the main message of this forum, which paradoxically declared itself in favor of better “supervision of the sector”.
“Scams, counterfeiting, dubious business practices, some have made people believe in recent months that they were representative of our sector when they only represent a minority. It is their abuses that we first want to denounce”, the text continues.
Star YouTubers McFly and Carlito and Natoo, beauty cameramen Enjoy Phoenix and Sananas, or even former Miss France Camille Cerf: the signatories include, however, influencers of all stripes.
• Why is it controversial?
A confusing blanket list, and for good reason: since its publication, some web celebrities fear being compared to personalities accused of questionable practices, who might fear seeing their activities better regulated.
“I was introduced to this platform as a way to defend ourselves against laws that were too extreme, which could have wrongly penalized honest content creators,” Squeezie wrote on Twitter. “In reality, this forum makes no distinction between content creators and influencers, and only seems to be trying to limit the damage to malicious influencers.”
As for the substance, it is not the law that is being drafted that poses a problem for him.
He joins the youtuber Dr. Nozman, whose signature also appears on the platform, who assures in a tweet that after reading the bill, he finally judges that the planned measures are “mostly necessary to move in the right direction and that they point precisely to real problems”. and dangers”.
• Who’s behind?
At the initiative of the text, we find the first professional federation in the sector, launched in January, the Union of Influential Professions and Content Creators (Umicc). “We regret that the forum signed by content creators in the JDD it was poorly perceived”, the organization defended in a reaction shared with the Tech&Co newsroom. Claiming to support this law, the Umicc argues that this text was simply intended to “provide education around the profession of creator.”
Several influencers have since explained that they agreed in principle, without having the possibility of rereading the text, as indicated by the Youtuber Linca on his Twitter account. Some claim to have misread it, such as the travel blogger Bruno Maltoror even not having considered it.
“We all sign something with two or three WhatsApp exchanges, YouTuber Seb La Frite lamented into the microphone of France Inter this morning. “We all look like a bit of an idiot! Which is kind of the case because we’re really stupid to have acted like that.”
Source: BFM TV
