French Ban Words 'Twitter' And 'Facebook' From TV, Radio

How do you say Twitter and Facebook in French? You don't say them at all.

France has banned the names of both social networking sites from being spoken on radio or television, unless they are part of a news story.

The reason for the ban goes back to a 1992 decree that says mentioning such services by name is an act of advertising. Therefore, using the terms "Twitter" and "Facebook" constitutes preferential treatment.

Christine Kelly, a spokesperson for France's Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA), explained the ban.

"Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition," she told L'Express. "This would be a distortion of competition. If we allow Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it's opening a Pandora's Box-- other social networks will complain to us saying, 'why not us?'"

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/french-ban-twitter-facebook_n_871153.html

:rofl:

:evilgrin:

CNN for example has been working both brandnames into seeming every single story for years. Facebook especially is just the latest of many attempts to reduce the communicative richness of the Internet into the property of a handful of heavily branded corporations looking to convert every piece of data about you into their owned commodity.

I don't care for the French order, but if I never heard "Facebook" ever again, that would be wonderful.

(Twitter is less harmful, it's just a public messaging service. The word I'd like to ban in that regard is "tweet." Every time someone says that, a cat-angel goes to hell!)

No one's taken over as much as Google has. It's exceeded all of the fantasies Bill Gates and AOL had back in the 1990s, about how they were going to swallow the Internet and rule the world with their decrepit little "portals."

Of course, unlike Facebook, which is just MySpace/Friendster/NameYourDatingSite 2.0, Google provides some amazing services. The truth is, the Internet needs a search engine, and Google's is the best, and the same is true of most of its other services.

But the most important service Google manages, I'll have to admit, is in being the greatest voluntary surveillance tool ever invented.

Google is a verb for a reason, you'll admit. But notice that the media are not constantly pimping Google the way they do with Facebook and Twitter. I think for now the difference is that you can find anything with Google, it expands your horizons and view of different perspectives on a matter, whereas Facebook is a hamsterwheel of self-reference (notwithstanding how well people have put it to use in more censored jurisdictions, so far).

As for Twitter, it's actually not as controlled/structured as Facebook. I think what the media loves about it is obvious: 140 characters. Very few worthy thoughts are going to fit, and the media loves snappy, brief and stupid. An infinite source of dopey "man on the street" soundbites, and you don't even have to pay for a crew to go out on the street and find anyone.

.

:shrug:

:sarcasm:

Based on that reasoning we should all stop calling nose tissues "kleenexes", or folks in Milwaukee should stop calling water fountains "bubblers" because it's an advertisement for Kohler.

newspapers, books, movies and magazines.

It isn't that they can't say, "a social networking sight," or "a sight for quick opining", they just can't use the brand names Facebook or Twitter. I think it's just fine.

For example they can say tv, or radio, but they can't say CBS, or NBC, or FOX, unless that identification is critical to the story.

I like it.

They can say "social media page," but Facebook is a corporate brand.

If a news reporter wants to say one should blow one's nose when one has a cold, he/she should use the term "tissue," not Kleenex. Same goes for Facebook and Twitter.

I'm down with the French on this.

ON EDIT: I hope all the "anti-corporate" types here agree with me, because these corporations are just as bad as any other.

Because you can't say beer brand names (or any brand names for that matter).

until I saw it makes sense given the decree and if they are going to keep it, they shouldn't choose one over others. Perhaps they should remove the decree.

Shouldn't it be up to the individual radio or TV stations if they want to give them free advertising?

I am NOT a fan of Facebook, but if I own a radio station in France, why should they be able to tell me I can't mention it?

Or maybe it's universal, in which case I kinda agree with you, if you own a station and want to provide free air time so be it. But then I look at the current state of media in the US and I really am not sure this is all that bad.

Basically it is viewed that there must be no advertisement for commercial entities on French news reports - government, private or otherwise. The "ban" is just stretching the code a little too far IMO.

Facebook or Twitter pages, which they can mention

"For more, visit somenewschannel.com/followus" which redirects to twitter.com/somenewschannel