The DCMS Committee has today published the Government
response to its Report on influencer culture.
The Report, published in
May, highlighted how the growth in the influencer market has
exposed a number of regulatory gaps, particularly around
advertising disclosure and protection for children, both as
influencers and viewers. It called on the Government to
strengthen employment law and advertising regulations.
The response welcomes
or agrees with the intentions of a number of the Committee’s
recommendations, including promoting young people’s social media
literacy, developing a code of conduct for influencer marketing
and strengthening the powers of the Advertising Standards
Authority (ASA) and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It
also states that the Department for Education is open to
exploring legislative ways of improving employment protection for
child influencers.
Chair of the DCMS Committee
said: “The response is a welcome
acknowledgement of the compelling need to address the gaps in
child safety provisions and advertising regulation that have been
exposed by the rapid rise in influencer culture. While it makes
all the right noises on developing digital literacy,
strengthening advertising enforcement and bolstering child
employment protection, the Government must now follow through in
the Online Safety Bill and beyond to ensure they deliver on the
pledge to make the UK the safest place in the world to be
online.”
The responses from the CMA and
the ASA were published in July.
