Photoshop Use Is Now Regulated in France

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This is interesting:

In France last week, a bill was signed into law requiring that models show their employers a doctor’s note certifying they’re of a healthy weight….The statute also demands that magazines explicitly indicate any photographs that have been altered with an editing program, like Photoshop.

….Studies have shown that, out of all Western Europeans, French women have the lowest BMI, at 23.2. With 11 percent of French women considered “extremely thin,” the government has spent the better part of 2015 trying to curb its anorexia epidemic. In March, the country passed legislation criminalizing “pro-anorexia” and “thinspiration” websites, promising to slap perpetrators with a €10,000 fine ($10,800) and one year in prison.

France isn’t the first country to impose such a law. In 2012, Israel banished too-thin models from starring in advertisement photos. Similar measures were undertaken in Spain and Italy in 2006, where underweight models are now prohibited from walking the catwalk in fashion shows.

I knew about the new law in France that requires a doctor’s note for models, but I had no idea about the rest of this stuff. The Photoshop thing is certainly intriguing. I wonder if French fashion magazines will start putting notices on every photo, or if they can get away with a single big warning in the Table of Contents?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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