PARIS — No plugging of Twitter accounts or Facebook pages on French broadcast airwaves.
France’s audiovisual authority says TV and radio stations that promote their sites on the two gargantuan social-media services on the air are engaging in secret — and unfair — advertising.
Some French bloggers, bemoaning that their country seems out of touch with the Digital Age, pilloried what it considered an antiquated stance.
On May 27, the Superior Audiovisual Council, or CSA, said broadcasters could legally point viewers or listeners to their sites on generic “social media” but that they may not cite services such as Facebook or Twitter by name.
The CSA said Monday that Facebook or Twitter could be cited only when a report or program merits a specific reference to those sites.
“We are not in the United States, where you buy frequencies to get a TV channel and then you do pretty much whatever you want on your channel,” said Christine Kelly, a member of the council.
In France, you don’t buy the frequency but get one for free, and in exchange “there are rules you must respect,” Kelly told Associated Press Television News.
