On May 29, the influencer platform Rigi announced that any financial influencer on the platform selling content pertaining to the securities market would have to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Rigi claims this measure will help create a safe and trustworthy platform for creators. What is Rigi: Rigi is a platform that allows creators to form private communities where they can share posts, paid courses, pay-to-view content, and one-on-one interactions. Why it matters: Rigi's decision to require SEBI license from financial influencers comes after SEBI last week issued an order against finfluencer PR Sundar for providing investment advice without proper registration. Other influencer platforms might also soon follow Rigi, making compliance harder for finfluencers. This rigor might be needed, given that, in some cases, these finfluencers provide bad or misleading financial advice, harming unsuspecting citizens. While Rigi has chosen to take a platform-wide action, individual creators have also been taking their content off social media channels, pages, and Telegram groups. Given that Rigi itself is not acting like a financial influencer, one must wonder why they decided to take this action. One possible reason could be the upcoming change in safe harbor protection. Based on the services Rigi offers, it falls under the purview of safe harbor protection which prevents intermediaries (such as social media platforms) from being held liable for the content posted by third parties on their service. But this protection will not last for long given that the Digital India Act,…
