The French media regulating authority has decided to join the debate over Facebook and Twitter’s prominence amongst social networking sites – by banning radio and TV presenters from mentioning social media services by name on air.

The Conseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA) has ruled that according to a 1992 decree, broadcasters directing their audience to their Facebook or Twitter pages are advertising those sites in a forbidden manner.

The ruling states that presenters can refer to social networks without mentioning them by name – but how exactly this would be possible isn’t yet clear. Facebook and Twitter can still be mentioned by broadcasters when they are specifically part of a story.

A spokesperson for the CSA, Christine Kelly, suggested that in the future Facebook may become a generic term, but for the moment it remained a commercial operation, and thus subject to regulation.