“There were a lot of victims of scams from medical practice to financial advice. People lost hundreds or thousands of Euros or sometimes have substantial physical damage following wrongful medical procedures,” says Vojetta. “It was an opportunity to regulate the whole sector.”
Carine Fernandez, president of the Union des Métiers de l’Influence, one of the organizations which provided input during the bill’s creation, says that the practices focused on in the media are not representative of the industry as a whole. “In France we mostly speak of a few reality TV influencers who have promoted scams or other bad practices on social media,” she explained to TIME. “These are the stories we hear on the subject, but they are only a handful of influencers.
“You can have very successful micro-influencers that have 20,000 followers, but have more engagement because people talk to them,” she says. “Do we want to monitor every single person who has 30,000 followers and didn’t disclose the fact that they received leggings in the mail?” says Goanta. Those who do not comply could face six months’ imprisonment and a fine of up to 300,000 euros. But “beyond this judicial path, which is notoriously slow in France, the real deterrent will consist in actions that the platforms will have to undertake,” explains Vojetta. This can include taking down posts and stories that violate the law, or removing users from their platforms altogether.The E.U.