Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

matthewfraser-thismuchiknow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 45 posts

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#21

Post by ugh »

zdw wrote: post #19

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.

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#22

Post by cdavid »

fun2have wrote: post #11

We just got the following response for an Ad trying to recruit for this job http://webnographer.theresumator.com/apply/ie1n7s/Remote-Use... 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

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

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#23

Post by ugh »

smashing wrote: post #10
mturmon wrote: post #8

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 s…

But the FCC never banned the phrase French Fries.

The FCC is quite keen on banning words, though.

The difference is quite small.

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#24

Post by [deleted] »

drats wrote: post #16
mturmon wrote: post #8

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 s…

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#25

Post by cdavid »

drats wrote: post #16
mturmon wrote: post #8

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 s…

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 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.

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#26

Post by kelnos »

cdavid wrote: post #25
drats wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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…

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.

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#27

Post by bonch »

BoppreH wrote: post #18

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…

> 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."

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#28

Post by 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.

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#29

Post by bonch »

mturmon wrote: post #8

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 s…

Keep in mind that France actually invented its own term for email simply to have a term that it considered to be more French.

Re: The Words "Facebook" And "Twitter" Are Banned From French Airwaves

#30

Post by Xixi »

mturmon wrote: post #8

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 s…

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.

Post reply on HN