The scandal over Chiara Ferragni’s supposed charity Christmas gingerbread is bringing a tail in her country. Italy, the factory of influencers par excellence, has decided to bring order to the world of content creators and has approved a series of rules for those who operate in the country and reach at least one million followers on the various platforms or social networks where they work The rules will have very serious consequences: fines of between 30,000 and 600,000 euros are foreseen in the event that they promote products without unequivocally specifying that they are making money to advertise them.
It has been decided by the Italian Communications Authority (Acgom), with rules by which Italy follows the example of other European countries such as France, where last year the Parliament approved a law that went further and prohibited the promotion of practices such as cosmetic surgery, products such as nicotine or subscriptions to sports betting channels. The body, an independent body that controls the communications sector, has established guidelines to regularize this new profession for those who have at least one million followers and an “average engagement rate” – that is, comments or likes – in at least 2% of posts, as well as agents who act as intermediaries between them and the companies that hire their services.
The same law will apply to them as to the media due to the large audiences they reach, who they will have to warn at all times if they are advertising to avoid possible scams. The new regulation will also ensure that they protect the fundamental rights of people, minors and the values ??of sport. The highest fines, in fact, will be applied in the case of an attack on the integrity of minors.
Everything happens in the middle of a storm after Chiara Ferragni, who has almost 30 million followers on Instagram alone, was fined more than one million euros for telling her fans that the profits from the sale of the pandoro ( a Christmas sweet similar to panettone) that he distributed with the company Balocco would be destined for the pediatric unit of the Turin hospital, despite the fact that the donation, of only 50,000 euros, was made months before the campaign by Balocco. And they weren’t cheap: they cost about nine euros, three times more than the average cost in the supermarket. For the same reason, the Prosecutor’s Office of Milan is investigating the Italian star for a possible crime of aggravated fraud.
The Ferragni case, which could have carried out similar operations by selling other products such as Easter eggs, has caused a media storm in Italy. Not only is it losing followers and big brands are canceling campaigns, as has been the case with Coca-Cola, but even the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, entered the scene during her political festival: “The real role models are not the influencers who make a lot of money by wearing a dress or showing handbags – he said – or even promoting very expensive gingerbread with which it is made to believe that charity will be done, but the price of which are only used to pay their millionaires’ boxes”.
