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France Bans Facebook and Twitter From Radio and TV
An anonymous reader writes "In France, radio and television news anchors are no longer allowed to say the words 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' on air, unless the terms are specifically part of a news story. The ban stems from a decree issued by the French government on March 27, 1992, which forbids the promotion of commercial enterprises on news programs."
Product placement is not allowed in state channels, commercial websites are just that, products.
And in Europe, it's taken for granted that this is a reasonable restriction and that the idea of state channels is reasonable.
Most Americans (and probably a lot of Euros) don't grasp that European leftism != American leftism and European rightism != American rightism. There are strong parallels in abstract, but as you cross the pond you see a fundamental change in the cultural gestalt of the relationship between the state and the individual.
Some examples : -Logos of trademarks that appear in music clip (and the rest) must be blurred. -A video announcer cannot promote his own book (example: this can't happen Glen Beck. Oh, and btw, his analysis of the French riots of 2005 is completely false, ofc. Hello FUD). -Trailers of films cannot be broadcast on TV as ads (only during emission about cinema) Generally speaking this comes from the same law: "No Hidden advertising" You have other reglementations, like 'in average, 6min of ads / hr max', and 'no too noisy ads' (wasn't that a recent proposition from Obama?). More recently, it was decided to stop broadcasting of all advertising on gvt-owned TV channels, which usually account for more than 50% of hearing. Whether you like or not those laws, comparing them to the Freedom Fries stuff is stupid, and shows that the author ignores French culture...
livre des faces and twitteur
More like trombinoscope and piailleur.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.