The tide is turning for influencers. On Wednesday, the deputies unanimously voted for a bill aimed at combating the excesses of influencers on social networks, before probable final adoption in the Senate on Thursday. In the process, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) forced two of them to post a message on their social networks for 30 days, because of their “misleading commercial practices “.
This is the first time that Bercy has used “name and shame” to target Internet stars. The practice, now enshrined in law, allows the state to publicly reveal the identity or actions of a person (or organization) for the purpose of exposing or discrediting them. This sword of Damocles weighed on the influence sector: at the beginning of May, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had announced that the government would not hesitate to “give the names of influencers who did not respect the rules”.
Only two influencers, Simon Castaldi and Illan Castronovo, have been publicly pinned at this stage. Their practices are the subject of an “administrative injunction” pronounced by the agents of the repression of fraud. In detail, Simon Castaldi is accused of concealing “the commercial intention of his publications, yet directly related to the promotion of goods or services” as well as the “brands for which he carries out these communications”. These shortcomings are akin to “hidden advertising”, according to management. Illan Castonovo is targeted for his sports betting advisory service, which is supposed to “increase the chances of winning at gambling”. He is also in the sights of the authorities for having promoted “a service for the payment in money of part of the balance of the Personal Training Account”.
A few hours after the publication of the message from the DGCCRF, Illan Castronovo explained himself in a story on his Instagram account. Seeming to dispute the “name and shaming” method, the influencer writes that he “would have liked us [the influencers] to be framed rather”. “Be aware that an influencer has no interest in scamming his community”, he also clarified, before clearing himself: “I personally did not do any scam, any scam, […] and I remind you that I’ve been doing more product placements for two years. Simon Castaldi, for his part, did not react to the administrative injunction. Another celebrity, however, expressed his satisfaction: it is the rapper Booba, particularly committed to the fight against the excesses of influence. He split a tweet taking up the news, and adding, for any caption, the word “Pinned”, followed by a thumbtack smiley.
Illan Castronovo and Simon Castaldi will not be the only victims of this name and shame campaign started by Bercy. At the request of the ministry, the DGCCRF has tightened controls on influencers since December 2022, to the point of having carried out as many in one quarter as during the whole of last year. At the beginning of May, the repression of fraud indicated in a press release that it had checked 50 influencers. Among the 30 influencers in breach, “none was transparent as to the commercial nature of their approach”, specified the authority, which thus announced “18 injunctions and 16 criminal reports”. According to our information, the Ministry of the Economy will tomorrow unveil the complete list of targeted influencers. This with a “view to raise awareness of loyalty issues”, to use the words of the press release.
