French media banned from using the words Facebook and Twitter

Ne tweetez pas

“ ‘There are rules you must respect,’ say French officials about a new restrictive ban on the words ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ in French media,” The Christian Science Monitor reports. “The ban announced by France’s audio-visual authority aims to stop ‘clandestine advertising’ of the two American social media giants, and is the latest in a long history of attempts to regulate images and words ranging from ‘e-mail’ to Coke in La République. … ‘ Tweeter ’ (meaning ‘to tweet’), for example, is now a verb entered into Robert’s French dictionary as a new word last year. Various meetings and social gatherings in France are carried off as ‘Facebook events.’ … Under laws announced May 27 and that went largely unnoticed until this week, French TV and radio employees must use a generic phrase like ‘social network’ or ‘ réseaux sociaux ’ rather than Facebook or Twitter. Exceptions involve citing sources of information, as one might use the newspapers Le Monde or Le Figaro to cite the origin of a news story. A chorus of French media mavens argue the law is a parochial effort that forcibly constricts speech to preserve a French sense of control over commerce and cultural sensibility.”

Ice cream with buzz

“A public-health official in central Missouri has asked an ice cream shop to cool it with the cicada ice cream, even though customers apparently can’t get enough of it,” reports Associated Press. “Sparky’s Homemade Ice Cream in Columbia, Mo., sold out of its only batch of the insect-filled dessert within hours of its June 1 debut. The Columbia Missourian says employees collected the cicadas in their backyards and removed most of the dead bugs’ wings. They then boiled the bugs and covered them in brown sugar and milk chocolate. The base ice cream is brown sugar and butter flavour. Gerry Worley, an environmental health chief with the Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health, says … that he has advised against [cicadas’] use as an ingredient.”

Poor customer service

“Americans are fed up with poor customer service, with 64 per cent walking out of stores due to poor assistance and 67 per cent hanging up on a call before their problems are even addressed, according to a new survey,” Reuters says. “The most annoying gripe is not being able to get a person on the phone, followed by rude salespeople, according to findings from a Consumer Reports survey issued on Tuesday.