Caveat influencers: An ethics council is a step in the right direction

Launching the India Influencer Governing Council (IIGC) last week underlines the explosive growth of the influencer market in India and the need to establish some sort of standards to govern it. Unlike its conventional counterpart, the brand-endorsement business on print and TV, the ambit of social influencers, is many orders of magnitude larger owing to the power of social media. From political and social commentary to brand and product endorsements to YouTube and instant video apps in a multitude of languages, this sprawling area has infinite visibility. No surprise, populous India is one of the world’s fastest-growing influencer markets, expected to surpass ₹3,375 crore by 2026. A note introducing the IIGC, comprising senior executives from leading digital-services companies as the founding leadership team and over 65 board advisors across influencers and brand leaders on board, recognises this. It refers to the “colossal scale” and “challenges around transparency, promotions, and regulatory uncertainty” and aims to set standards, protect influencer rights, and promote responsible content creation. The question is whether this agenda would be sufficient.

 

Last year, the Advertising Standards Council of India (Asci) had come up with a set of self-regulatory guidelines for influencers built around disclaimers and disclosures. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has regulations for influencers peddling financial products. Importantly, Sebi’s regulations involve penalties — recently invoked, for example, in the case of Asmita Patel and her Global School of Trading. Likewise, the United States Federal Trade Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority, and the Competition and Markets Authority in the United Kingdom have rules about honesty and disclosures for brand influencers. Transgressing these could attract penalties, fines, and legal notices. It is unclear whether the IIGC will have the authority to do so. Without some sort of deterrent capability in place, the efficacy of the IIGC may be muted. 

Establishing standards will also be challenging. As with social media comment, unexceptionable recommendations for fairness, balance, and propriety may preclude brash interjections for which influencer Ranveer Allahbadia finds himself facing death threats and police cases, and he has been upbraided by the Supreme Court. But the line between comment (in this case supposed comedy) and opinion is a fine one and recent experience in India has shown that a person’s views may be another person’s insult, a problem that is easily amplified on social media, where posts go viral in seconds. Equally, establishing influencer rights may also be necessary. The legal threat by Mondelez to an influencer for highlighting the high sugar content in bestselling children’s drink Bournvita is a case in point. The influencer took down the video and apologised since he lacked the resources to go to court. The fact that Cadbury subsequently reduced the sugar content in Bournvita suggests an unfair balance of commercial power. One solution would be to partner the government to establish standards. For instance, it was the memorandum of understanding between Asci and the Ministry of AYUSH aimed at monitoring misleading advertisements of AYUSH drugs that enabled a case to be lodged against the proprietors of the ayurved major Patanjali. Despite these challenges, the IIGC is a good beginning. No doubt, it will refine its approach with experience to gain real traction. Till then, caveat emptor remains the motto.