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.
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.
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.
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!
I'm french, and I grew up with this law. So it doesn't sound absurd to me, but my opinion is biased. This has always existed (well apparently since 1992), and for every brand. But you are making a point that we cannot cite other brand, in fact, the law state that, if you cite one brand of the domain (here social network), you should also cite the others.
And finally, I was watching french shows this week, and they frequently bypass the law by citing facebook and twitter.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What I said is that both initiatives are somewhat petty, and somewhat comparable (government officials deprecating "foreign" terms). The article fails to recognize that both cultures have their peculiarities, and treats this trait as being peculiar to the French.
I agree that when the President, vice-President, and SecDef of the U.S. hold up another country to ridicule, as President Bush and his leadership team did with regard to France ("old Europe" and all the rest), it is indeed different in many ways than a set of French broadcasting bureaucrats forbidding certain words.
I'm just not sure the difference works strongly in favor of your argument that the French case is more outrageous.
This ban has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of resentment of Anglo-Saxon culture (though such a resentment does definitely exist).
In France citing the name of a commercial entity when it's not relevant to the news/show is considered unfair advertisement. So it's banned, unless you name all competitors of the field. It's very common when watching a live TV show to have the interviewer remind the interviewee that they cannot name a brand.
France have many such "fairness" rules. Another example is during presidential elections: all TV/radio channels must allot the exact same air time to all candidates.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
> 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."
> 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).
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.
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.
Funny idea. In fact, you're joking but it is already the case. In French, loan words must be italicized, and if not italics available, isolated in French quotes, « comme ceci ».
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.
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.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 97.1 ms ] threadI 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.
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.
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!
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.
But then, remember Freedom Fries and cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys, and it seems like we all have our childish side.
The difference is quite small.
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.
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.
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.
I agree that when the President, vice-President, and SecDef of the U.S. hold up another country to ridicule, as President Bush and his leadership team did with regard to France ("old Europe" and all the rest), it is indeed different in many ways than a set of French broadcasting bureaucrats forbidding certain words.
I'm just not sure the difference works strongly in favor of your argument that the French case is more outrageous.
In France citing the name of a commercial entity when it's not relevant to the news/show is considered unfair advertisement. So it's banned, unless you name all competitors of the field. It's very common when watching a live TV show to have the interviewer remind the interviewee that they cannot name a brand.
France have many such "fairness" rules. Another example is during presidential elections: all TV/radio channels must allot the exact same air time to all candidates.
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.
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
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.
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)
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."
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).
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.
Also, this regulation is not really about protection the language from loan words. It’s about advertising.
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.
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?