Today, the French government will kick off discussions around a bill that would put strict regulations on influencers, including making it mandatory for them to label filtered or doctored images and ban them from promoting cosmetic surgery as a part of a paid partnership.

On Friday, the country’s finance minister Bruno Le Marie said the measures would help “limit the destructive psychological effects of those practices on Internauts’ esteem” and that there could be a “zero-tolerance approach” to anyone who doesn’t respect the foundations. In accordance with the bill, breaches of the brand new law will end in as much as two years of jail time and €30,000 in fines. Not only that, but influencers which can be found guilty won’t be allowed to make use of social media or proceed their careers.  

In addition to making it a criminal offense to not disclose filtered or photoshopped images, influencers could be banned from promoting cosmetic surgery, cryptocurrency and gambling as a part of paid partnerships. The bill covers all French influencers and people influencers who live abroad but earn money from sponsoring products sold in France.

On Monday, Le Marie told Franceinfo that these regulations weren’t a “fight” against influencers or a solution to stigmatise them, but as a substitute were a system to guard them. “Influencers have to be subject to the identical rules as people who apply to traditional media,” he said, adding the web “isn’t the Wild West”. In 2017, in an effort to combat eating disorders, the French government passed a law that required the words “photographie retouchée” (retouched photograph) to accompany all promoting images during which the models’ bodies had been altered.

It’s clear that the constant viewing and consumption of unrealistic digital content is a mental health risk and that something must be done around filtered and photoshopped images on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. The rise of social media during the last decade has coincided with a self-esteem crisis. Eating disorder rates are skyrocketing, and half of each men and girls experience body dysmorphia. Meanwhile, cosmetic surgery procedures and non-surgical aesthetic procedures like filler and Botox are increasing.

Research done by body care brand WooWoo found that one in ten British women said they “hate every thing about their body” with over a 3rd saying pressure about their bodies got here from social media. Research by Dove found that 50 per cent of women consider they don’t look adequate without photo editing. And because the technology around filters continues to advance and develop into undetectable, the implications could develop into much more severe. Various efforts through the years have been made to alleviate these pressures. In 2021, the Promoting Standards Authority ruled that influencers must state after they use a beauty filter to advertise skincare or cosmetics within the UK. The identical yr, Norway passed a law requiring images during which the topic’s body size, shape, or skin have been altered, either before or after the photo is taken, to hold a label designed by the federal government ministry

Nevertheless, previous research has suggested that merely labelling something as retouched or filtered doesn’t necessarily stop the viewer from wanting to attain the look. In a Dazed article last month, beauty culture critic Jessica DeFino argued that it’s misguided to say transparency is a net positive, pointing to a study which found photoshop transparency on promoting and marketing images was ineffective. She quoted Dr Clare Chambers: “If advertisers proceed to make use of models who look ‘perfect’ in accordance with a narrow, unattainable standard, then labels don’t do anything to disrupt that ideal of the ability it holds over us.” 

Not only that, but a study done by the University of Warwick found that flagging models as ‘enhanced’ or ‘manipulated’ (counterintuitively) increases our desire to emulate their appearance. “Drawing attention to digitally altered images may not, as one might expect and hope, reduce the aspiration to achieve contemporary beauty ideals,” the paper states. “Beauty ideals can’t be easily challenged by such interventions. Beauty ideals are culturally constructed and are carriers of meaning and value.”

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