France could force influencers to indicate the retouching of their photos

In order to limit the negative effects on the esteem of young people, France could force influencers to report the retouching of their photos.

France’s Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, recently spoke about the possible regulation forcing influencers to report retouching or filters on their posts on platforms such as Instagram or TikTok. The aim of this decision is to “limit the destructive psychological effects exerted by these practices on the youngest Internet users”, as Le Maire expressed.

In 2017, the French government had already passed a law making it mandatory to include the label “photographie retouchée” (retouched photograph) on all those printed or online images in which the body is retouched with Photoshop.

A supervisory team at the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs, Competition and Repression of Fraud would be in charge of regulating France’s influencers should the proposal, which will be highlighted as part of a new bill this week, go ahead.

Le Maire claimed that paid cosmetic surgery collaborations would be banned. “I want to say to influencers who do not respect the law that, from now on, we will have a zero-tolerance approach. No dodging or skirting the rules.”

In case you missed it, here’s the 2023 trends report presented by Instagram.