

The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves - adbge
http://matthewfraser-thismuchiknow.com/post/6137712619/you-dont-say-words-facebook-and-twitter-are

======
alain94040
I'm disappointed by the comments on this thread. HN usually performs better,
but somehow the discussion got derailed.

Facts: a law has been on the books for more than a decade about forbidding the
promotion of brands outside commercials.

For instance, you can't mention any specific brand of medication (like Viagra)
outside of a news context, you have to discuss the medicine itself.

The body in charge of enforcing that law has just clarified that Twitter and
Facebook are brands, and therefore mentioning them outside a news context is
akin to a hidden commercial, which is not allowed.

You can argue both sides very thoughtfully, but if you miss out on the fact
that French airwaves are heavily regulated regarding commercials, don't
bother.

~~~
r00fus
Bingo. In the US, we're used to interweaving corporate brands into our
collective psyche, and it's ok with us (well, most of us).

In France, it's disallowed on fairly understandable ideals.

Which brings up the counter-question (left as exercise for reader):

Is the US too corporatized?

------
BoppreH
Though the story is interesting, I'm flagging this article for extreme bias
while trying to sound like a news outlet. The author took a law that makes a
little sense and tries to find hidden agendas, self interests and
contradictions in official reports with little or no evidence.

I'm sorry if this is not supposed to be a news article (even if the law is not
new), but I really don't like explanatory articles throwing around words like
"lunacy", "obviously", "inconceivable", "ludicrous", "ridiculous",
"ironically" (where I couldn't find any irony), and so many others.

And this was the last drop: "The obvious answer is that regulators like to
impose rules, if only to make themselves feel important."

(if you didn't read the article yet, it didn't end with that phrase,
thankfully)

~~~
bonch
> Though the story is interesting, I'm flagging this article for extreme bias
> while trying to sound like a news outlet

What are you talking about? What about it is trying to "sound like a news
outlet?" It says right in the side of the page, "Matthew Fraser - Reflections
on life and literature in Paris." It's clearly a blog.

> The author took a law that makes a little sense and tries to find hidden
> agendas, self interests and contradictions in official reports with little
> or no evidence.

What could possibly make sense about prohibiting people from mentioning
Facebook and Twitter on television? The CSA spokesperson actually asked, "Why
give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there
are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition?" Because
Facebook beat out those networks struggling for recognition, that's why. It's
not anyone else's problem that Facebook beat them.

I find the author's nationalist explanation to be plausible. This is the same
government that insisting on inventing its own term for email that was more
"distinctly French."

~~~
gbog
> This is the same government that insisting on inventing its own term for
> email that was more "distinctly French."

Are you talking about Québec? They did invent "courriel", if Wikipedia is
right.

Disclaimer: I'm French.

Now I think it is a mistake to mix the two aspect of the topic:

On one side, it is forbidden to do covert advertisement in France, be it for a
French trademark or anything else. The guys on TV can't have a laptop with a
well-known fruit on it's very visible back, as they can't wear a T-shirt with
"Louis Vuitton" on it. Sometime it make thing a bit harder for journalists,
because so many people have transformed themselves in flesh-ads. This is just
a choice of the French. They prefer having less brands in their sight, and I
happen to share this taste with my countrymen.

There is the other part of the topic, the "war" against English words in the
supposed defence of the French language. This war can be sometime fought also
by nationalists, but it is not nationalist by itself. (Or trying to maintain
one's cultural asset is nationalist? Is it nationalist for Bushmen to try to
keep their culture alive?)

On this part, I agree with the goal, which is to keep a French language as a
strong cultural vector, but I don't agree with the means (keeping English
words away).

------
stretchwithme
Are they banning these words from all radio and TV? Or simply not allowing
government broadcasts from telling people to follow them on Twitter and
Facebook? There is a huge difference between the two.

The article states "If Facebook or Twitter make the news, they can be
mentioned on a strictly “information” basis. But no urging the audience to
connect via Facebook or Twitter to learn more, ask questions, give their
opinions, and so on."

That is quite a bit different than the impression conveyed by the headline
claiming these words are completely banned.

If this regulation applies to private broadcasts too, it is wrong.

------
mturmon
The OP speaks about French resentment of Anglo-Saxon cultural encroachment as
if it's some kind of childish French fixation ("That there is a deeply-rooted
animosity in the French psyche towards Anglo-Saxon cultural domination cannot
be disputed; indeed, it has been documented and analysed for decades.")

But then, remember Freedom Fries and cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys, and it
seems like we all have our childish side.

~~~
drats
But it really is a silly childish thing. They made up "courriel" just so they
didn't have to use "email". But electronic is électroniques in French (and
both ultimately come from the Greek) and the English word "mail" is derived
from Old French. It's an opportunity to underline the French in English and
shared heritage I would have thought.

As the other comment points out, the things you point to weren't mandated by
the State; I think the whole idea of the State controlling the language in
such a way is insane.

~~~
cdavid
The usage of couriel instead of email is not enforced by the state, but is
suggested by the French Academy (which is not a governemental organization).
The State can enforce the usage in the documents it produces itself, but this
is different. Courriel is not made-up, it was actually coming from French
Canadian.

While this may be a bit ridiculous (being that I have never heard anyone in
France saying courriel), this is not a big conspiracy against Anglo-Saxons.

I would also note that in the US, every mention of fuck or other obscene word
is beeped when put on air. How is it that different (everyone knowing what is
said, like everyone knows that facebook or twitter is what is being talked
about instead of social media). Of course, presented as one of this silly
little thing found in any culture, this would not make an interesting blog
post anymore.

~~~
kelnos
_I would also note that in the US, every mention of fuck or other obscene word
is beeped when put on air. How is it that different...?_

It's very different. Bleeping expletives is a result of (idiotic) anti-
obscenity laws. Banning talk of Facebook or Twitter is (officially, anyway)
about not advertising commercial entities on news outlets, and some misguided
notion of "fairness" between various social networking services.

~~~
cdavid
But the article is about the over-regulation in France - in that aspect, you
have the same idea of banning some language. The reason why is different, but
the idea of controlling language itself is not specific to France.

~~~
kelnos
We're agreeing, actually. This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Yes,
it's the same idea in the sense that specific words/language is banned. But
the reasoning behind it is very different, and that's what matters. I don't
agree with banning words like "fuck" from American airwaves, but I'm somewhat
ok with it because it's done because collectively _the people_ don't like
them. France's ban on "Facebook" and "Twitter" is for weakly-supported
economic "fairness" reasons.

------
fun2have
We just got the following response for an Ad trying to recruit for this job
[http://webnographer.theresumator.com/apply/ie1n7s/Remote-
Use...](http://webnographer.theresumator.com/apply/ie1n7s/Remote-User-
Experience-Research-Intern-Fluent-In-Either-German-French-Dutch-Italian-Or-
Spanish.html) in Portugal from a French internet site.

The response........

Unfortunately we can not publish it for the following reasons: \- It is
illegal in France to publish a job written in a language other than French

Meanwhile France has a high youth unemployment, etc etc

~~~
cdavid
I doubt this is true: I believe it is illegal to have a job written _only_ in
English, which is a bit different.

------
sawyer
As absurd as it is, I'm pretty sick of every media outlet on earth attempting
to herd me to their FB/Twitter page every time they're on air or commercial.

~~~
whackedspinach
While I agree that it is annoying, a law is not the way to fix that. It's also
very useful, as it connects the viewers with more information. I don't think
anything would convince news outlets to stop since it drives up their website
traffic, etc.

~~~
sawyer
Totally agree.

I wonder how much value a news outlet derives from their follower communities
and whether or not they've A/B tested the effect asking viewers to tune in on
FB/Twitter hurts their ratings.

------
learc83
I was fascinated to learn about Minitel. I had no idea that any country had
such widespread adoption of a computer network before the internet.

------
zdw
The japanese solve this problem by writing all their "loan words" from other
languages in a different script (katakana) whereas all native words are in
either chinese characters (kanji) or the phonetic alphabet (hiragana).

I say the french do the same. Just require that all non-french words be
typeset in Papyrus, or Comic Sans. Should deal with the issue nicely.

~~~
ugh
That’s entirely different. France, the U.S. and large parts of Europe all use
the latin alphabet. We only have that one writing system (as opposed to the
Japanese who have several). Katakana, hiragana and kanji (also the latin
alphabet) are different ways of writing with different symbols and different
ways of using those symbols. An “A”, however, is still an “A”, whether it’s
typeset with Arial, Papyrus or Comic Sans.

Also, this regulation is not really about protection the language from loan
words. It’s about advertising.

------
grok2
I think it makes sense in it's own weird way -- if the broadcaster had said
"Call us on ...." it wouldn't have mattered because we don't know the service
provider behind the phone number. But when they say "follow us on twitter" or
"follow us on facebook" they are indirectly endorsing a particular service
provider over other similar kinds of service providers.

------
jmadsen
This is a case where I toss all my personal philosophies aside and say,
"Yeah!"

They now do "news segments" on what's being said on Twitter. Make the news
agencies behave like grown-ups, even if it kills them.

------
wrinklz
TV and radio airwaves are a limited public resource, and so they are regulated
in the USA similar to France. Arbitrary words are forbidden on US network
television also. So it comes down to a matter of taste.

------
jevinskie
Wow, this is absurd! The French official said “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?’”

Nobody is saying those other networks can't be mentioned. Maybe if they would
improve, they /would/ be used and get mentioned. Does my service have a right
to be promoted? No? Clearly the solution is to "level the playing field" and
prohibit ALL promotions!

~~~
jhchabran
You're taking the problem from the wrong side.

It had always been forbidden to advertise anything owned by a private company
except in some news directly related to it.

"Iran is revolting on Twitter" is relevant. "DSK did epic shit in a hotel,
follow the news on twitter" is irrelevant. It sounds like a national channel
advising to buy newspaper X every time to get more informations about the
story.

While I personally understand both case, Twitter is a great communication
channel, it's still owned by a private company, being quoted by a public
channel.

The CSA is fighting against my second example, which would consider Facebook
and Twitter no more as companies but as public tools, creating a bloody mess :
when should we consider a private tool as a public one ? That's what they
meant by opening the pandora box.

But of course, I strongly agree, crafting some absurd law is clearly a wrong
measure but it's not absurd given the strict context we have here in France
about national medias.

~~~
jevinskie
By public channels do you mean Free-To-Air or do you mean that they recieve
public funding? If the latter, I believe the restrictions are more reasonable.

------
plainOldText
How about the word verb "to google" ? Shouldn't this be forbidden too,
according to the french reasoning? Or do they not use it at all?

~~~
joejohnson
That was exactly what I came here to write. I understand the spirit of this
law, that using facebook and twitter is using a public good for advertising
outside of the context of an ad. But some of these brands have a tendency to
become words in there own right, and like kleenex or google, the word becomes
synonymous with the brands' function. I believe Webster has included "Google"
as a verb now. It'd be interesting to know how french people say "to google",
and if this legislation addresses such uses of the term on public broadcasts.

~~~
Wilya
I don't think there a is a verb in French. We're stuck to 'search on
google'('chercher sur Google'), mostly (I think) because the verb wouldn't
sound nice. I'm not sure I've ever heard it in the media, but I never really
paid attention in the first place.

What struck me, though, is that people, in the news, or in other ads (banks,
etc) tend to say "We have a phone application" when they only provide an
iphone app. Might be somehow related.

~~~
joejohnson
Oh, thank you.

------
Soljin
Interesting article. HORRID writing. GTFP. This guy clearly wants to be a
journalist but just isn't cutting the mustard. I should have to be 30 inches
in your article to find the quote for why they are doing it, which makes some
sense.

~~~
ryanf
Get the fuck...?

