France’s competitors authority on February 18, 2026, revealed a landmark opinion exposing deep structural imbalances between the nation’s greater than 150,000 skilled video content material creators and the handful of platforms that dominate their financial lives. The opinion, designated 26-A-02, follows an ex officio investigation opened by the Autorité de la concurrence on Might 13, 2024, and represents essentially the most complete regulatory examination of the net video content material creation sector in France to this point.
The findings land at a second when the creator economic system is increasing quickly throughout Europe. In keeping with the Autorité’s revealed press launch, the sector “has grown quickly over the previous 15 years and is now an integral a part of the French audiovisual trade.” That development has not, nonetheless, translated into negotiating power for the creators who energy it. Eight out of ten content material creators who participated within the authority’s survey confirmed their bargaining energy with platforms is “weak or very weak.” Even creators with massive, established audiences instructed the authority’s Board that the imbalance runs strongly in favour of platforms.
The 4 platforms on the centre
The opinion focuses on 4 main platforms – YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and, to a lesser extent, Twitch. These are the important thing intermediaries by which creators in France attain audiences, entry monetisation mechanisms and construct their skilled identities. The Autorité is express that the sector is concentrated round these gamers and that this focus, mixed with important limitations to entry for brand spanking new opponents, provides every platform substantial market energy over the creators who rely on them.
That dependence is structural, not incidental. In keeping with the opinion, platforms are important to creators’ exercise, and a small variety of them usually account for a really massive share of any particular person creator’s income. The reverse is just not true. A given content material creator represents solely a marginal share of a platform’s whole income – notably when that creator has a moderate-sized viewers. This asymmetry shapes each industrial interplay between the 2 events.
One may anticipate creators to reply by migrating to various platforms when circumstances turn into unfavourable. The Autorité examined this risk rigorously and concluded that switching is way more durable in follow than in concept. In keeping with the opinion, “substitutability between platforms presents important constraints, due particularly to their codecs, most well-liked themes, particular cultures and experience and, lastly, the imperfect overlap of their audiences.” A creator who has constructed a long-form academic following on YouTube can’t merely transplant that group to TikTok, which is optimised for brief vertical video and carries a distinct cultural register totally.
These constraints, the Autorité argues, imply that the primary platforms don’t belong to the identical product and repair market. They’re extra complementary than competing from the creator’s perspective. The sensible result’s that many creators follow multihoming – distributing content material throughout a number of platforms concurrently to diversify each viewers and income. However multihoming is a response to fragility, not proof of bargaining power.
Income sharing: platforms determine every thing
Essentially the most technically consequential part of the opinion considerations how promoting income is shared. The Autorité identifies a elementary authorized vacuum: in contrast to associated rights within the publishing sector, French regulation doesn’t require platforms to suggest any mechanism for sharing promoting income with creators. The choice to supply such a mechanism, and the phrases on which it operates, relaxation totally with every platform. Instagram, the opinion notes particularly, has not launched an promoting revenue-sharing mechanism in any respect.
For platforms that do function revenue-sharing programmes – YouTube, TikTok and Twitch amongst them – entry is usually topic to minimal thresholds: a sure variety of subscribers, a minimal quantity of views, or a required frequency of uploads. In keeping with the Autorité, these thresholds “de facto exclude a portion of video content material creators in France, regardless of such creators additionally producing income for the platforms.” A small creator whose movies entice promoting impressions and contribute to platform income might nonetheless obtain nothing from that income in the event that they fall beneath the entry bar.
Those that do qualify face an extra constraint. In keeping with the opinion, “content material creators have very restricted, and even no, particular person bargaining energy over the monetisation of their content material, stopping them from acquiring particular person phrases.” Platforms set the foundations universally, and the foundations aren’t open to particular person negotiation. This dynamic has parallels across the creator economy, the place platforms from X to Spotify have repeatedly restructured payout formulation with no creator enter, typically shifting the premise of calculation totally with out advance discover.
Compounding the issue is a scarcity of transparency in how the foundations are literally utilized. Platforms have sole management over the implementation of their revenue-sharing mechanisms, and creators have minimal entry to the underlying information – together with how views are counted and the way the promoting income base is outlined. In keeping with the Autorité, “many content material creators complain of a scarcity of visibility concerning future revenues.” A creator who can’t perceive how their funds are calculated can’t plan their enterprise, negotiate sponsorships intelligently, or assess whether or not the platform’s said phrases are literally being honoured.
YouTube’s algorithm transparency has been a recurring concern, with creators in a number of markets documenting important unexplained drops in views and earnings following undisclosed platform adjustments. The French authority’s findings give formal regulatory weight to these complaints.
Algorithms and visibility: the hidden lever
Content material visibility is, in some ways, extra consequential than revenue-sharing guidelines as a result of it determines whether or not creators can construct the viewers that makes monetisation attainable within the first place. Visibility on platforms is primarily decided by advice algorithms and, to a lesser extent, by moderation measures – each of that are totally beneath platform management. In keeping with the Autorité, “creators don’t have any actual management over how their content material is distributed or promoted.”
The authority expresses specific concern concerning the aggressive dangers embedded on this association. Platforms may, in precept, use their algorithmic management to maximise their very own profitability in ways in which hurt creators. The opinion identifies two particular situations that it considers doubtlessly problematic. First, a platform may scale back the prominence of content material that includes a industrial partnership between a creator and an advertiser – pushing the advertiser towards shopping for direct promoting stock as an alternative of sponsoring creator content material. Second, a platform may systematically promote content material that’s particularly profitable for the platform itself, together with – in the long run – content material generated totally in-house by generative AI.
Each situations would increase critical considerations beneath Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article L. 420-2 of the French Business Code. The Autorité stops in need of discovering that these practices are presently occurring, but it surely names them explicitly as conduct that might entice authorized scrutiny. For advertisers and advertising and marketing professionals, the primary state of affairs is especially related: if platforms algorithmically suppress branded content material to redirect advertiser spending towards paid placements, the worth of creator partnerships in media planning turns into structurally distorted. French digital marketing generated €14.4 billion in revenue in 2024, with main platforms controlling roughly 70% of digital promoting distribution – a focus that makes algorithmic equity a major industrial query.
The Autorité additionally attracts consideration to the sensible problem creators face when one thing goes mistaken. The authority calls on platforms to mobilise enough human and materials sources in order that creators, “no matter their profile, can attain platform representatives able to explaining, as an example, a drop in content material visibility, a moderation motion sanctioning their content material or a ban.” This can be a pointed statement. YouTube has faced repeated criticism for failing to communicate clearly when creators experience unexplained drops in viewership, and the French opinion successfully validates these considerations at a regulatory degree.
Generative AI: a brand new aggressive variable
The opinion additionally examines the emergence of generative AI as a think about aggressive dynamics between content material creators. As AI instruments allow the manufacturing of video content material at scale and at low price, the Autorité identifies a danger that AI-generated content material may turn into a parameter of competitors between several types of content material with out satisfactory disclosure to audiences. In keeping with the opinion, “operators of generative AI programs and on-line platforms should be sure that content material created by generative AI might be clearly recognized.” This advice extends past labelling for audiences – it carries implications for the aggressive integrity of advice programs, on condition that platforms might need monetary incentives to advertise cheaper, algorithmically generated materials on the expense of human creator output.
The priority is just not purely hypothetical. YouTube secretly modified content without creator consent in an undisclosed experiment on Shorts in 2025, utilizing machine studying to change visible parts of creator movies. The incident illustrated exactly the type of opacity that the Autorité’s suggestions are designed to handle. Thomas Höppner, a contest lawyer and accomplice at Geradin Companions, famous in a LinkedIn publish revealed on the day of the opinion that these considerations “aren’t restricted to dominant video-sharing platforms. They apply equally to any dominant platform coping with dependent enterprise customers or content material suppliers.”
Höppner additionally raised a query with direct relevance to the broader digital promoting market: “What may this suggest, for instance, for the beneficial positioning of AI Overviews in Google Search?” The question factors towards a systemic subject that the Autorité’s opinion touches on however doesn’t resolve – specifically, whether or not the identical logic that makes algorithmic self-preferencing in video problematic applies equally to go looking platforms that promote their very own AI-generated responses forward of writer content material.
The seven suggestions
The Autorité issued seven formal suggestions. In abstract, the authority: encourages creators to claim their authorized rights and urges organisations such because the French Union of Influencers and Content material Creators (UMICC) to proceed coaching creators and offering sources together with contract templates (advice 1); requires that AI-generated content material be clearly identifiable (advice 2); calls on platforms to make sure revenue-sharing phrases and their implementation are truthful and clear (advice 3); recommends larger transparency in advice algorithms, together with when these algorithms are up to date (advice 4); requires transparency in content material moderation (advice 5); urges platforms to supply satisfactory human assist so creators can receive explanations for adjustments of their visibility or moderation actions (advice 6); and warns that algorithmic methods selling content material that’s profitable for platforms – together with future AI-generated content material – “may disrupt competitors between content material and be extremely detrimental to the variety of provide for customers” (advice 7).
The opinion carries important weight for the promoting trade as a result of it immediately addresses the industrial relationship between creators and platforms within the context of sponsored content material and paid promoting stock. If platforms algorithmically demote branded creator content material to redirect advertiser spending towards platform-owned advert codecs, that may be a competitors concern – not merely a creator welfare subject.
The Autorité’s methodology was in depth. The Board heard representatives from Instagram, OpenAI, TikTok, Twitch and YouTube, in addition to from UMICC and a variety of outstanding French creators together with Dr Nozman, EnjoyPhoenix, Gaspard G, HugoDécrypte, Inoxtag, Maghla, McFly & Carlito, Squeezie and ZeratoR. The authority additionally performed a survey of content material creators and launched a public session of trade stakeholders, supplemented by questionnaires and hearings. Its findings on bargaining energy – with 80 p.c of surveyed creators reporting weak or very weak negotiating place – emerge from this broad empirical base, not from anecdote.
The opinion sits inside a broader sample of French and European regulatory motion focusing on platform energy. France’s competition authority fined Google €150 million in 2020 for adopting opaque and difficult-to-understand guidelines for the operation of Google Adverts, discovering that the corporate was not constant in making use of its insurance policies. In 2024, the identical authority fined Google a further €250 million for failing to adjust to commitments made in a dispute over licensing agreements with French publishers. The creator economic system opinion follows logically from this sequence: the authority is making use of related transparency and equity rules to a sector the place the identical structural asymmetries – opaque guidelines, unilateral phrases, no particular person negotiation – have taken maintain.
On the European degree, the Digital Markets Act imposes self-preferencing prohibitions on designated gatekeeperstogether with Alphabet, ByteDance, and Meta. The Autorité’s opinion enhances this framework by addressing, by nationwide competitors regulation, the dynamics that the DMA doesn’t absolutely cowl – notably the place of content material creators who aren’t themselves companies searching for platform entry, however people whose livelihoods rely on platform choices.
For advertising and marketing professionals, the sensible implications are quick. Advertisers who put money into creator partnerships want to grasp that the algorithmic surroundings through which that content material competes is neither impartial nor clear. Media experts have flagged influencer content as a brand safety concern, with 27 p.c figuring out it amongst prime digital media challenges – but the Autorité’s findings counsel that the dangers run within the different path as effectively. Creators whose sponsored content material could also be algorithmically suppressed signify a danger not simply to model security, however to the measured efficiency of influencer campaigns. If platforms can quietly scale back the attain of content material that includes model partnerships, the return on funding calculations that justify influencer advertising and marketing spending turn into unreliable.
Timeline
- Might 13, 2024 – Autorité de la concurrence opens ex officio inquiry into the aggressive functioning of France’s on-line video content material creation sector
- 2024 – Greater than 150,000 skilled content material creators energetic in France, in keeping with the Autorité’s findings
- November 13, 2025 – BVDW publishes Germany’s first influencer marketing landscape, noting the worldwide creator economic system is projected to develop from $191 billion in 2025 to $528 billion by 2030
- December 4, 2025 – French digital marketing sector reports €14.4 billion in revenue and 310,000 jobs, with main platforms controlling roughly 70% of digital promoting distribution
- January 17, 2026 – X doubles creator revenue pool and restructures payout mechanics, shifting calculations to Verified House Timeline impressions solely
- February 18, 2026 – Autorité de la concurrence publishes opinion 26-A-02 on the net video content material creation sector, discovering 80% of creators have weak or very weak bargaining energy and issuing seven suggestions on transparency and algorithm equity
Abstract
Who: The Autorité de la concurrence, France’s nationwide competitors authority, performed the investigation. The themes are France’s greater than 150,000 skilled video content material creators and the platforms – primarily YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch – on which they rely. The authority’s Board heard representatives from Instagram, OpenAI, TikTok, Twitch and YouTube, in addition to from UMICC and outstanding French creators together with Squeezie, Inoxtag, HugoDécrypte and others.
What: The authority revealed opinion 26-A-02 discovering that content material creators in France are structurally depending on a small variety of platforms, that 80 p.c have weak or very weak bargaining energy, that platforms unilaterally set revenue-sharing phrases and content material visibility guidelines with minimal transparency, and that algorithmic management might be utilized in ways in which increase critical competitors considerations. The authority issued seven suggestions protecting creator rights, AI content material identification, revenue-sharing transparency, algorithm transparency, moderation transparency, creator assist entry, and aggressive equity in content material promotion.
When: The inquiry was opened on Might 13, 2024. The opinion was revealed on February 18, 2026.
The place: The opinion covers the net video content material creation sector in France. The listening to course of occurred earlier than the Board of the Autorité in Paris. The platforms implicated – YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch – are international corporations with industrial insurance policies made outdoors France.
Why: The Autorité recognized competitors challenges in a sector the place a small variety of platforms maintain important market energy over a big and economically dependent workforce of creators. The investigation addressed considerations about equity in income sharing, transparency of algorithms and moderation, and the aggressive dangers posed by platforms that would use algorithmic instruments to redirect advertiser spending or promote their very own content material on the expense of unbiased creators. The findings carry implications for the broader digital promoting market at a time when creator spending reached $37 billion globally in 2025.
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