Why You Can’t Say “Twitter” Or “Facebook” On French TV

Television and radio personalities in France can no longer say “Twitter” or “Facebook” on the air unless it’s in a news story about those specific companies, according to a decree from the French broadcasting authority CSA.

In other words, French broadcasters who want to encourage viewer interaction via Facebook or Twitter accounts can no longer do so. The “follow us on Twitter” or “Like us on Facebook” refrains — common parlance in American broadcasting — are no longer allowed on French channels. The networks can still say “find us on social networks,” but services cannot be mentioned by name.

The regulatory decree was issued on May 27. The rationale behind the decision? Apparently mentioning social networks like Twitter or Facebook by name goes against a 1992 decree prohibiting surreptitious advertising. Encouraging users to engage with the content creators or give their own feedback is “clandestine advertising” for the social networks themselves.

Christine Kelly, a spokesperson for the CSA, tried to explain the decision by saying it “would be a distortion of competition” to “give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition.”

Matthew Fraser, a Canadian-born journalist who lives and works in Paris, sees this ruling as an example of the “deeply rooted animosity in the French psyche toward Anglo-Saxon cultural domination.” Fraser writes that “sometimes this cultural resentment finds expression in French regulations and laws.”

An unspoken resentment toward American-based social networks certainly makes more sense than the arbitrary enforcement of an obscure broadcasting decree that was issued a decade before either social network even existed.

What do you think of the CSA’s decision to ban the mentions of Twitter and Facebook in a non-news context? Let us know in the comments.

Photo courtesy of leslieduss

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