The words “Facebook” and “Twitter” at the moment are verboten on French TV, because France thought it would be beneficial to follow its own laws. Last week, the country’s Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA) ruled that TV networks and radio stations will not be capable to explicitly mention Facebook or Twitter during on-air broadcasts, except when discussing a narrative during which either company is directly involved. The move is available in response to a 1992 governmental decree that prohibits media organizations from promoting brands during newscasts, for fear of diluting competition. In preference to inviting viewers to follow their programs or stories on Twitter, then, broadcast journalists should couch their promotions in slightly more generic terms — e.g. “Follow us to your social network of choice.” CSA spokeswoman Christine Kelly explains:
“Why give preference to Facebook, that’s worth billions of greenbacks, when there are numerous other social networks which are struggling for recognition? This will likely 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?’”
It didn’t take long for america media to leap everywhere in the story, with many shops citing no less objective a source than Matthew Fraser — a Canadian expat blogger who claims, in ostensible sincerity, that the ruling is symptomatic of a “deeply rooted animosity within the French psyche toward Anglo-Saxon cultural domination.” Calling the ruling “ludicrous,” Fraser went directly to flamboyantly talk about the most obvious, stating that such regulatory nonsense would never be tolerated by corporations within the US. But on the other hand, neither would smelly cheese or universal healthcare. Apple, meet orange. Fueling competition via aggressive regulation may strike some free-marketeers as economically depraved, but it surely certainly won’t kill social media-based commerce. Facebook and Twitter have already become roughly synonymous with “social networks” anyway, so it’s hard to check this sort of minor linguistic tweak having any major effect on online engagement. That isn’t to claim that the recent regulation will suddenly create a degree playing field — it won’t. However probably won’t put America’s social media titans at a major disadvantage, as some would have you ever believe. Rather, these knee-jerk arguments from Fraser and others seem more rooted in capitalist symbolism and cross-cultural hyperbole than anything — reality, included.
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