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«In favor of regulation of the sector» and «ready to participate in the technical table» proposed by Agcom. But “influencers and creators cannot be considered publishers regardless”. Thus the Aicdc, the Italian Content & Digital Creators Association which brings together 250 creators, with a position taken by vice-president Mauri Valente. Therefore, the association continues, underlining that it is ready for discussion, “it is necessary to define an overall regulation that takes into account the requests and needs of the entire sector”.
Following Agcom’s green light to the Guidelines to ensure compliance by influencers with the provisions of the Consolidated Law on audiovisual media services – thus adapting to current provisions for TV, radio and publishers in terms of advertising, transparency and protection of minors – digital creators take the floor to have their say as a “category”.
The creators association
They do it through the Aicdc: an association founded on 6 December and which has 250 affiliates, including Khaby Lame (with his 160 million followers on TikTok and another 80 on Instagram), Luca Campolunghi, Sespo, Giulia Latini, Gabriele Vagnato, Klaus , Cartasegna, Samara Tramontana, Andrea Muzzi and Ignazio Moser.
Aicdc: «Platforms need to be involved»
«As content creators, we know that transparency is essential to maintaining excellent relationships with your community», begins the note from the Aicdc. The theme on which attention is paid is the equalization, in terms of obligations, of creators (the most followed in reality, with at least 1 million followers and able to generate comments or likes on 2% of their contents) with services audiovisual media. In short, publishers. But influencers, the association replies, «do not own or have decision-making power on the social networks in which they operate. This is why we ask you to involve all platforms and evaluate the metrics that delimit the perimeter of the professionals included.”
The boundaries of “professional” influencers
An upstream node according to the Aicdc also lies in the metrics: «Each social network has different rules, and 1 million followers and 2% engagement rate are not necessarily indicative metrics. Content creators with far fewer followers but with a more solid relationship with the community could influence the consumer in a more limited but more significant way. At the same time, a small content creator could create content that goes viral.” Ultimately for creators it is necessary to involve “all the actors to reflect together on how to make the ADV recognizable using all the most modern tools that technology makes available to us”.