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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."
Check your history before flaming or modding me down.
If it weren't for France there wouldn't be an America. Seriously, Philosophically, financially, and with their military help America was established. Then they turned around and did for themselves too.
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Not that I agree with the French policy (or RTFS), but it's recently bothered me (in a very slight way) that we now have forms of communication that can only be referred to through the brand name. We could chat, text, fax, phone and blog without referring to a company name, but Tweets and Facebook posts seem harder to generalize. Just saying something's been "posted online" seems too vague. The proper generic verb hasn't been invented yet.
Any objective person can see that saying "Follow us on twitter!" is an endorsement of a commercial service, and it's not legal in France to pepper news programs with adverts like this.
The blogtards and upcoming posters who say "Stupid bans like these don't work" and "Next they will be after McDonalds and Disney" are either missing the point due to a lack of thought, or don't care about the point and just like to criticize France anyway.
Personally, I'm amazed that CSA have finally pulled their finger out and have reminded the broadcasters of their responsibilities.