On April 15, 2026, four CDA members of the Dutch Tweede Kamer — Inge van Dijk, Jantine Zwinkels, Joris Lohman and Harmen Krul — filed parliamentary questions asking the government to consider forcing influencers to disclose when they lack professional expertise on sensitive subjects like finance, health and nutrition. The headline idea is a mandatory disclaimer along the lines of #NietDeskundig ('not an expert'), #GeenDiploma ('no diploma') or #GeenExpert, modelled on the now-familiar #ad and 'betaalde samenwerking' labels but pointed at credentials rather than commerce (Tweede Kamer, 2026). Coalition partners VVD and D66 have signalled support for 'some sort of warning ahead of unsubstantiated claims' (DutchNews, 2026). The government responded on May 28, 2026.
The case for it is not frivolous
It would be easy, and wrong, to wave this away as moral panic. The harm the CDA points to is concrete and already adjudicated. In September 2024 the Dutch financial regulator AFM fined finfluencer M.J.J.M. van de Venne €544,000 for steering followers into Grinta Invest, an unlicensed asset manager that vanished with investors' money; he had pocketed commissions of up to 10% of the capital his audience handed over (AFM, 2024). A second finfluencer was fined €256,000 in the same case, and an earlier penalty in mid-2024 reached €620,000 (NL Times, 2024). The Dutch food safety board has separately warned that influencers routinely make illegal or misleading health claims. When a 19-year-old loses real savings or swaps prescribed medicine for a supplement pushed by someone with a ring light and no training, 'just scroll past' is a thin answer.
But the Netherlands is not a regulatory vacuum
The critical context the proposal underplays is that Dutch influencers are already among the most heavily regulated in the world. Since the Media Act took effect on July 1, 2022, 'major influencers' must register with the Commissariaat voor de Media and comply with broadcast-style rules; the Media Authority can fine violations up to €225,000 each (National Law Review, 2022). The ACM enforces consumer-protection guidelines requiring that paid content be flagged clearly and upfront, the Dutch Advertising Code Authority polices the same ground through self-regulation, and the AFM licenses financial promotion — the regime that produced the Grinta fines (Business.gov.nl). The finfluencer harms the CDA cites were caught and punished under existing law. That is evidence the toolbox works, not that a new tool is missing.
Where the '#NietDeskundig' idea breaks down
The disclosure instinct is sound; the specific mechanism is not. Three problems stand out.
First, 'expertise' is not a binary the way 'this is an ad' is. A paid partnership is a verifiable fact. Whether someone is qualified to discuss intermittent fasting or index funds is a judgment with no clean threshold. Who certifies it — and is a registered dietitian with a contrary-to-consensus view 'deskundig' or not? A label that collapses contested judgment into a yes/no stamp invites both over-claiming by the credentialed and chilling of legitimate lay speech.
Second, a compelled 'I am not an expert' tag is a content-based speech mandate, not a transparency one. Disclosing payment reveals a hidden commercial interest the audience can't otherwise see. Disclosing a lack of qualifications forces ordinary people to broadcast a state-scripted disclaimer before sharing opinions on diet or money — speech that is presumptively protected. The EU's own framework already supplies proportionate hooks: the Digital Services Act addresses systemic risks without conscripting individual posters into self-deprecation.
Third, the evidence base for youth-protection mandates is weaker than the rhetoric suggests. As EFF documented in May 2026, a wave of youth-focused social media rules is being built on 'shockingly shaky science,' with correlational studies dressed up as proof of causation (EFF, 2026). A #NietDeskundig mandate risks the same trap: a visible, satisfying gesture whose real-world effect on financial losses or health outcomes is asserted, not demonstrated.
A proportionate path
There is a better sequence. Start by enforcing what exists — the AFM's finfluencer crackdown shows targeted action against actual fraud beats blanket labels aimed at everyone. Fund media-literacy education so young users learn to interrogate sources, a durable skill no hashtag confers. Require platforms, not individual creators, to surface authoritative information alongside high-risk financial and medical content, leveraging DSA obligations. And if disclosure is pursued, scope it narrowly to genuinely high-stakes, paid health and investment promotion — the Grinta pattern — rather than every yoga tip or budgeting reel.
The CDA has correctly identified that unqualified advice can cause real harm. But the Netherlands already meets that harm with registration, consumer rules, an advertising code and financial licensing that demonstrably bite. The answer to a gap that existing law is closing is sharper enforcement and better literacy — not a novel speech mandate whose benefits are assumed and whose costs to ordinary expression are real.