Quebec To Impose French-Language Quotas On Streaming Giants 147
Quebec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has introduced Bill 109, which would require streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to feature and prioritize French-language content. CBC.ca reports: Bill 109 has been in the works for over a year. It marks the first time that Quebec would set a "visibility quota" for French-language content on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify. [...] The legislation, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, would apply to every digital platform that offers a service for watching videos or listening to music and audiobooks online. Those include Canadian platforms such as Illico, Crave and Tou.tv. It would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to enshrine "the right to discoverability of and access to original French-language cultural content."
If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters.
If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters.
Here's my contribution to French language quota (Score:2, Interesting)
The Guard dies, it doesn't surrender!
or, as it was originally uttered at Watrerloo:
Merde!
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The Guard dies, it doesn't surrender!
or, as it was originally uttered at Watrerloo:
Merde!
I can help up your French percentage by calling someone a little bitch in French. "Merde! Un petite garce!" Could add an extra, "Tete de merde!" for good measure (head of shit / shithead). I knew those two years of French would come in handy!
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I thought that was Joual [youtube.com]..
Francais (Score:2)
Sacre Bleu!
Tribalism (Score:5, Informative)
Tribalism will end humanity. Too many human brains are programmed to be tribalistic instead of humanist. It's not going to turn out well.
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Which is a strange way of saying "F--- you Frenchies, adopt *MY* culture!"
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Which is a strange way of saying "F--- you Frenchies, adopt *MY* culture!"
Is the Quebec government requiring streaming services to offer more English language content? No, they are requiring more French language content. This is the government imposing the adoption of French culture, as opposed to allowing streaming services to add whichever content they believe their customers will value enough to pay for. If the citizens of Quebec demanded more French content then would there be any expectation other than these services offering this content? They want to make money, and if
Re:Tribalism (Score:5, Interesting)
The grandparent post didn't demand Canadians speak English or French, only that this cultural divide is not healthy. Canadians are naturally shifting to predominately speak English and this is upsetting to some people in the Quebec government. If there is a middle ground on this then perhaps everyone can meet there.
These kind of laws are exactly the "middle ground" you are talking about. One side wants Quebec to be an independant country. One otherside wants to assimilate Quebec into an English-speaking Canada (and one third side wants Canada to be the 51st state but that's offtopic).
The middle ground is Quebec remains in Canada, but is allowed to protect its language and culture (which wouldn't need that much protection to begin with if it were a country). Part of the protection of the French language is Canada-wide. For example food content labels on all items sold in grocery stores must be bilingual.
If it weren't for the efforts from the Quebec government to preserve the French language in Canada then I would expect the people in and around Quebec to have their own kind of "cityspeak" that took in elements of English, French, and perhaps other languages.
Which would be a bad news for Quebec because it wouldn't be possible anymore to communicate with people from France and other French-speaking countries.
It's not as if this "cityspeak" would spread to the rest of the world. You don't create a new language in 2025. It just doesn't make sense with travel and communication. Languages were created back when people were isolated in small regions and most never travelled outside of it.
Is there some demand from on high that people in Canada must speak English? Not really. It appears there's considerable accommodation from the territorial and provincial governments to allow people to speak any language they like.
Of course people can speak any language they like. But at the official/governement level, English is also partly forced in Quebec.
When the British invaded what is now Quebec, they forced the use of English at least to a point: laws had to be written in English (possiblity in addition to French). And when Canada became a country, the other provinces forced Quebec to keep having to write its laws in English (in addition to French). So basically, while Saskatchewan and most provinces are free to choose in which language they write their own laws, Quebec is a special case and is still forced to write them in a non-official language, English. More recently (1982) the other provinces forced Quebec to offer free English-language public schools to children of any English Canadian who moves to Quebec. Even though education was originally a provincial jurisdiction, so Quebec was free to choose in which language to run its own public schools before that.
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These kind of laws are exactly the "middle ground" you are talking about.
Forcing streaming services to offer more French language content is hardly a middle ground. When it comes to something so fundamental to a culture as the language people speak there's no middle ground in effectively forcing people to be bilingual or be second class citizens.
Which would be a bad news for Quebec because it wouldn't be possible anymore to communicate with people from France and other French-speaking countries.
It's not as if this "cityspeak" would spread to the rest of the world.
The French government is having its own battles with keeping the French language from taking on English words and structure. Every language will evolve, and if Quebec and France were not so protective of the French language (or how the
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Forcing streaming services to offer more French language content is hardly a middle ground.
And the law doesn't force more French language content.
When it comes to something so fundamental to a culture as the language people speak there's no middle ground in effectively forcing people to be bilingual or be second class citizens.
That law doesn't force people to be bilingual either.
The French government is having its own battles with keeping the French language from taking on English words and structure. Every language will evolve, and if Quebec and France were not so protective of the French language (or how they believe the French language should be defined) then perhaps in the last 200 years or so we'd have seen a kind of merger of French and English worldwide. Americans "borrow" foreign language words all the time and incorporate them into common speech. It's something of a long running tradition for new words to show up in English dictionaries as these words gain more use.
As it is now there's not a single definition of the French language as there are differences within France and throughout the French speaking world. This is much like how in the English speaking world there's differences in how people from differing regions speak, and this is often the source of much comedy and amusement.
French evolves as well and there are many words taken from English. Some languages are more conservative than others regarding new words but there are pros and cons to each approaches. English didn't merge with any other non-centrally regulated language either. So no, English wouldn't have merged with French in 200 years even without the Académie Française or the Office Québecois de la
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I'm getting the impression you did not read the fine article.
I won't blame you on that one but it looks like it may be an error in the article. I checked other sources, and even the rest of this article, and it's all about the visibility and not adding new content. Everybody knows there will never be 20% of French content on a world-wide platform like Spotify, so the only way to comply would be to arbitrarily remove content in other languages, which would be stupid.
There is already plenty of French content on Spotify and Netflix. The point is not that they need to ad
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If it weren't for the efforts from the Quebec government to preserve the French language in Canada then I would expect the people in and around Quebec to have their own kind of "cityspeak" that took in elements of English, French, and perhaps other languages.
Which would be a bad news for Quebec because it wouldn't be possible anymore to communicate with people from France and other French-speaking countries.
Why would this necessarily be true? English is spoken in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Each country has different localizations in terms of distinct vocabulary, accents, and even grammar. Yet, people from these countries can easily communicate with each other, even with no training.
Re: Tribalism (Score:2)
Not without laughing though. Quebecois rarely fails to make me smile, as a French native. There are various anglicisms in the language spoken in France and Quebec, but they are often not for the same words, and that does create some surmountable difficulties.
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Sure but English is not "cityspeak". The OP said that without language laws, Quebec would no longer speak French, and wouldn't speak English either. That resulting new language is what I would call bad news. I'm glad schools standardize French to some point to prevent that from happening.
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I don't want to out anyone, and my username is at least fairly consistent across sites (though there are all sorts of people using this moniker and are not me), but I fairly recently had an online conversation with a gentleman. I was quite surprised, taken aback even...
They said that they did not like Ubuntu (it was a Linux-related site) because of Ubuntu's "humanist" traits.
As far as I can tell, they're a bit religious but not like into 'racial superiority' types of things. They seem to be fine with me, an
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I have no idea why they thought Ubuntu is 'humanist' and even less of an idea as to why they'd find it offensive enough to dislike the distro.
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Re: Tribalism (Score:2)
Everyone is tribalistic. It's just that some people's tribes include more of the world than orders.
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Once civilisation started, we started helping each other survive on an industrial scale. People who would normally fail to reproduce now manage to. So survival of the fittest lost its cutting edge. So we've hardly evolved since pre-civilisation. Hence our biological instincts are oriented towards living in small isolated tribes. And as a culture we're collapsing back to that pre-civilisation psychology. In previous generations, hardship motivated us to work together, and religion played a role to. We've got
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I'm undecided on this. On the one hand there doesn't seem to be much benefit to children to teach them Welsh, as we do in the UK. It's only used by a relatively small population, so has little value as a qualification, and is part of a family of little used languages so don't help much with travel.
On the other hand, being bilingual does have advantages in terms of understanding your primary language better, and making it easier to leader a 3rd language. I'm not sure Welsh is the ideal 2nd language for this,
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You can maintain Welsh culture and tradition without being tribalist. Like being a fan of the Yankees baseball team, but it doesn't mean you hate the Red Sox to the point of judging games unfairly or not caring about what happens to their fans. It's like if you have a family, you would buy your kids good shoes but not the most expensive shoes if it means you can't donate a cheaper pair to your neighbor's kids who can't afford one.
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Tribalism will end humanity.
Tribalism is part of human nature itself. Tribalism IS humanity. Humanity doesn't exist without it, no matter what Gene Roddenberry told you.
Too many human brains are programmed to be tribalistic instead of humanist.
Humans are not blank slates that can be rewritten at will. The Zebra will always want to be with the other Zebras doing Zebra things. Any attempt to change this will end up as farce, like trying to make a Vegetarian dog.
It's not going to turn out well.
Things will continue as they always have. The status quo of humanity and human nature will continue as always.
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Most humans are in it for themselves, failing that they are in it for their family (a small tribe); beyond that they will help their neighbors (a less small tribe); and so on and so-forth.
Now if by tribalism you mean corporations, then yes I will agree with that.
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Canada as a whole, like a America, is a settler society where this is possible. Quebec is a vestige of the Old World, fighting tooth and nail against not the New Man but against then same old Man who decided to pull his head out of his ass.
Canada's society is only partially removed from the British colonialism we descended from. Central Canada (formally ON and QC, but informally Toronto and Montreal) rules over Eastern and Western Canada like colonies. With all the votes clustered there what the 401 says goes. For many federal governments the rest of the country does not really matter, and are often an inconvenience. This was entirely by design a couple hundred years ago, but it has not aged as well as many would like to think.
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What are you on about? Karens are the racists tribalist. Tribalism says that when people outside your tribe are starving you shouldn't care. As for bitching, it's you tribalists that bitch about immigrants and people outside your tribe.
sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
I would like to let the rest of the world know that most of Canada thinks this is as ridiculous as you do.
Re: sigh (Score:3)
5 parties races (Score:2)
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"Chance" is a type-F noun.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we? I think Quebec has every right to protect its linguistic heritage, as do many linguistic and cultural minorities around the world.
Oh, and I'm a Canadian and not from Quebec.
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It's ironic how a European language that is one of the most prolific in the world is a heritage but the native languages of the area are left to die while the native speakers are being forced to assimilate.
This is just more racism with a pretext to legalize. There are even laws in Quebec and Canada defining this racial discrimination and making it illegal but have a clause that it's not discrimination if the government says so.
Just hypocritical.
I'm human and find that the more I experience the more I reali
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but the native languages of the area are left to die
Not sure what your point is. The government of Quebec serves the people of Quebec, not the natives which came before it. The official language is French. It's not hypocritical to ask companies to use the official language.
Culture and heritage is not something that is forced on the people. It's created by the people.
Yes a collective group of people, and those collectives can make decisions on how to preserve that culture, such as electing a government that mandates that language is protected.
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The official language became French by virtue of restricting laws that protect individual rights provincially and federally.
Yes a collective group of people, and those collectives can make decisions on how to preserve that culture, such as electing a government that mandates that language is protected.
A government can't mandate culture. It's created by the people. Each new generation creates it's culture. That's why western culture is so dominant. It allows new additions and changes with the times as the new generations express themselves. We don't go to clubs to square dance. The music of my youth is not the music of today. This has been going on in Quebec since the mid 70's and ye
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The official language became French by virtue of restricting laws that protect individual rights provincially and federally.
No, the official language became French because the land was originally settled by France, and France sent in more colonists than there were aboriginal people.
You know, the same way English became the language of the USA or Australia. English didn't exactly became the language of India because there were too many Indians living there compared to the number of British colonists.
After that, the UK tried to assimilate what were back then called "Canadians" into the English language by virtue of restricting law
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It's ironic how a European language that is one of the most prolific in the world is a heritage but the native languages of the area are left to die while the native speakers are being forced to assimilate.
What's your suggestion? That people in Quebec should learn one of the 30 native language or so that is only spoken by about 500 people? You think that would be more useful than learning English as a second language?
Oh, that's right. You don't have a suggestion, you were just whining.
In Quebec if your name is not of French origin you are not considered native, no matter how many generations of your blood line were born there.
You mean just like you used the word "native" to describe pre-columbian languages?
Anyways I don't see what you are talking about. Nobody cares if you are "native" or not. Quebec has a very high immigration rate by the way.
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What's your suggestion? That people in Quebec should learn one of the 30 native language or so that is only spoken by about 500 people?
How about they stop crying about native languages when they clearly don't give a fuck about anything native, including natives? It's not even a native language by definition, since they're all immigrants or children of immigrants.
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Who's "they"? I never hear anyone talking about "native" language or people here. That's not part of the public debate.
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Who's "they"? I never hear anyone talking about "native" language or people here. That's not part of the public debate.
Yes, that's the point. Wanting to preserve the [bastardized version of the] French language in order to preserve the Quebecian culture and then insisting that others should find that to be a legitimate value is hypocritical at best.
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You didn't answer the question. And you didn't answer the previous one either which was "what do you suggest?"
But what's the point? How is that hypocritical?
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You didn't answer the question.
There wasn't one worth answering.
And you didn't answer the previous one either which was "what do you suggest?"
Allowing The People to decide which language they will speak.
But what's the point? How is that hypocritical?
You don't see how it's hypocritical to act like preserving culture is important when you destroyed several other cultures to build yours? You must be a hypocrite all day.
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Allowing The People to decide which language they will speak.
The great thing is that this law doesn't change any of that. People are still free to decide which language they speak.
You don't see how it's hypocritical to act like preserving culture is important when you destroyed several other cultures to build yours? You must be a hypocrite all day.
Right, so no western nation should be allowed to preserve its culture because back in the days the roman empire destroyed the local cultures that where there before?
By that logic, it's hypocrite to say it's important not to kill neighbors because in the stone age everybody was doing it?
Let's face it. You don't care about aboriginal languages or culture. You don't think they should be preser
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Let's face it. You don't care about aboriginal languages or culture.
In fact I do. You don't care, and you want me not to care either, because that validates your position.
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Oh really, so that brings me back to my previous question, which you didn't think was worthy enough to answer (more likely, it is too inconvenient to answer):
what do you suggest? Do you think Quebec schools should teach an aboriginal language (which one?)? Should it replace English as the second language?
How about Canada and the USA?
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By the way, it's not that I don't care. It's that I have realistic expectations. I know we are not bringing back Wolastoqewi or Latin. Some languages like Cree or Inuktitut have some significant populations that they can survive, but it's up to those people to make that choice, not mine.
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As someone that's had some teeny tiny exposure to computer programming in different human languages there will be a similar clash of cultures. This isn't hypocritical, racial, or a matter of assimilation. What I've seen is that with most programming languages there will be many technical terms and phrases that were constructed with a basis in English, something with no equivalent in some other spoken language. What are people to do in translating these concepts from English to Japanese, German, French, or whatever? Are we to construct a new word with the same meaning but is somehow constructed to have a basis in this other spoken language? Or do we just teach them to use the same word as used in English? Most often these words were already artificial constructs, just as the item or concept they describe were artificial constructs, so it's often arbitrary to claim it is an English word to begin with.
How many of the above words were assimilated from other languages? Why do European languages share so many words? Are you aware that languages evolve so people can express themselves? Did learning math diminish your heritage with all the Greek derived words?
When it comes to many fields in our increasingly technological world there's a lot of new words constructed since existing words do not convey the desired meaning quickly. Many of these new words are derived from Latin as that is a "dead language" that doesn't see words come and go or change in meaning in time like with languages in current use. If the newly constructed word is derived from Latin then it tends to have the same meaning regardless of the native language of the person hearing or reading it.
The English language has come from other languages before it. It will change. What makes it English? The people who speak it. When people can't express themselves in their language they create terms borrowed or invented or they use another language. Stag
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Atleast if the translations/subtitles/alternate audio are accurate, it would be ok. But thus far, when it comes to streaming services- they struggle to even get an English show to have correct ENGLISH subtitles... and from what i have personally observed from their English to alternate language stream, it isn't better. really trippy when you watch a show and the English version is one thing, the subtitles say something completely different and then the dubbed audio of the dialogue gets warped into a compl
Yes We Do (Score:3)
If you want to preserve your culture you have to make it something people want to take part in - and there is a lot in Quebec culture that attracts peopl
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Yes we do. You can protect your linguistic heritage without being a dick about it. I can speak both English and French but it is wrong for a government to try and regulate which of those I'm allowed to speak or listen to.
The good thing is this law doesn't regulate what language you are allowed to speak or listen to.
All that does is make people avoid living in Quebec which is why Quebec's fraction of the Canadian population is decreasing over time.
No. The main reason why Quebec's fraction of the Canadian population is decreasing over time is that while Quebec has a very high immigration rate, Canada has an even higher immigration rate (some of the highest in the world). If Quebec had the same immigration rate as the USA, France or Germany, its fraction of the Canadian population would be decreasing anyways, perhaps even faster.
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I would like to let the rest of the world know that most of Canada thinks this is as ridiculous as you do.
Most of English Canada, maybe. But English Canada has always thought French Canada was ridiculous. It's no different than the way the Spanish look at Catalans and Basques. The majority sets the rules, and the minority chafes under them.
How about a simple setting instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
Preferred language. Simple dropdown. Job done. Let the user decide.
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Preferred language. Simple dropdown. Job done. Let the user decide.
That doesn't solve the licensing issue. The point is that they are demanding that Netflix have content to suit that preferred option. It doesn't help to say I want to hear French (why anyone would want to do that is beyond me, weird language) if the result is that only one or two movies show up.
The user can't decide what Netflix makes available. Geoblocking is the root cause of this, and it is an example of our species at its worst and most self centered.
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Looks like a job for AI, translating on the fly. Let's ignore that the quality probably will be poop but language-specific dubbing that way would be fairly easy to achieve.
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Do the people who actually live there support the "we must preserve French at all costs" mentality that the governments (at multiple levels) seem to have?
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From someone who lives here, no. That is more of an emotional appeal to try to motivate voters to go for a certain party. Day to day people don't worry about that and just get along with each other. There is no lack of French content or Quebecois content. People are producing it, people have access to it, but when you make them feel like they might lose it, that is what motivates them.
The clue is that the political party is trying to sell it by saying if we don't do this, it will be lost. They're trying to
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Free speech is in the Canadian constitution as well, just like the US one. Court interpretation is of course a bit different, but still if this was censoring, the law would be cancelled.
You can't sell drugs with Mandarin-only labels in the USA (or Canada) either. Nobody whines that Mandarin is censored.
Service not available (Score:5, Interesting)
"Erreur : Le service n'est pas disponible dans votre region (Quebec)."
Quebec is not a large market. It may not be worth the effort to service this requirement.
On the other hand... France has French language requirements. It may be trivial to surface French language materiel from France for Quebec users -at least for providers that already operate in France.
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"Erreur : Le service n'est pas disponible dans votre region (Quebec)."
Quebec is not a large market. It may not be worth the effort to service this requirement.
On the contrary. They don't have to change any content. They only have to make a custom page for Quebec (their algorithms are already location-based anyways as they do not put forward the same content in all countries). I am betting that Netflix and Spotify will remain in Quebec.
On the other hand... France has French language requirements. It may be trivial to surface French language materiel from France for Quebec users -at least for providers that already operate in France.
They already offer content in French, from France, Quebec and elsewhere. That's not going to change and that's not what the law is about. But yes, that's one of the reasons why streaming services are not going anywhere. It's easy to
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It may be trivial to surface French language materiel from France
From a technical standpoint, of course it is. Legally, not so much, due to licensing agreements. Now all those agreements which didn't already include worldwide or Canadian distribution have to be renegotiated in light of the idea that they will be forced to have that content, putting streaming providers in an inferior position.
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Just deem Quebec to be part of France and be done with it.
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Whack (Score:2)
I'm curious if the politicians that want to pass this have ever watched a french film themselves. Pretty positive every time I (english speaker) watch a foreign film with subtitles, I spend the next several months getting things suggested to me like "Korean Dark Romance Violent Revenge Films". ... never based on "french" or "german" or "russian" .... there is more to categorize than that...and I'm betting the politicians have watched nothing but amer
I've discovered some quite excellent items over the years
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I'm curious if the politicians that want to pass this have ever watched a french film themselves.
Of course they have. Like everybody in Quebec. Especially if by French you mean French-language. Quebec movies (almost all of which are in French) were 10-12% (depending on source) of movie theater ticket sales in Quebec in 2023. Plus a couple percent for French.
I don't think I know anyone in Quebec who never saw a movie in French. Also while I am not counting those, most English movies are dubbed in French.
Pretty positive every time I (english speaker) watch a foreign film with subtitles, I spend the next several months getting things suggested to me like "Korean Dark Romance Violent Revenge Films".
I watch "foreign films" (I guess you mean non-English language) from time to time and don't get this
Reality check. (Score:3)
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They are free to expand the service to all of Canada, or perhaps other French-speaking countries as well. These global companies are very good at profiling. They can offer ads or special content only to people of an age group, gender or city. It's very easy to do for a province.
Also streaming services already operate in countries smaller than Quebec. Sometimes with their own currency and content rules. The same content is not offered in Canadian and US Netflix, for example.
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You didn't get it. This is not about the content. There is already enough French content on Spotify. The law is about putting some of that content forward on the default/welcome page. It's very easy to do and doesn't require AI to "create" new content.
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Imagine being a global streaming company and being expected to tailor your content for one Province that has an entire population equivalent to that of one medium-sized American city.
France has a population of 68 million people, Quebec has a population of 9 million, and French language content is one of the most prolific in the western world. It's not like this content is somehow strange, unique or unavailable, and France already has similar requirements which were easily met.
I applaud even one single person criticising the geoblocking and general unavailability of content.
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Culture (Score:3, Insightful)
You know your culture sucks when you have to prop it up with force of law.
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To be clear you're saying that about a law specifically targeting a company from a *foreign* culture. It's not about culture sucking. It's about an American company pushing large American culture locally.
Sidenote: My favourite cable channel growing up was "World Movies". It just showed how much of a sheltered little shit we can turn into cranking out the same garbage over and over again if we all adopt whatever culture is *most popular* (not better, culture isn't about good or bad, it's about size).
I am gla
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You know your culture sucks when you have to prop it up with force of law.
True. Now do MAGA.
Is this based on user numbers or amount of media? (Score:3)
Curious how this works for judging a streaming provider for having to adhere to this legislation. Like, what about more niche streaming services that are serving specialized content. Can't demand Rakuten's Viki [viki.com] or TelevisaUnivision's Vix [vix.com] to prioritize languages that don't follow their business.
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The French language film industry is the second most prolific in the western world. France has had this law on the books a long time and Netflix had no problem meeting their requirements.
Funny you mention Rakuten Viki, because that's not a streaming service. It's a specific sub channel from the service. Rakuten TV itself is a streaming provider which among other countries is a streaming provider in France meeting the French language requirements. They have a lot of French content to make available.
Never hea
Now go away (Score:3)
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"Can you even prove you are Canadian?"
Maybe he is a lumberjack.
There is no Canada, (Score:2)
It's forced, but if that's what people want.... (Score:2)
In Quebec 95%+ speak French because if you don't you are excluded from society, business, everything
Because everything is conducted only in French
In Wales you are taught Welsh at School, everything defaults to Welsh, some Schools teach only in Welsh etc. but you can easily get by without speaking Welsh .... and only 17.5 % of the population speak Welsh at all
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You could say that in England 95%+ speak English because if you don't you are excluded from society, business, everything as well.
But yes, Welsh is a good example of what Quebec doesn't want to happen to its language. The next stage is Irish.
Advertising (Score:2)
How do get advertising in English only
In other news (Score:2)
In other news, the Government of France is considering imposing French language quotas on Quebecois media.
French Content (Score:2)
Quebec should be making their own French content instead of demanding that for-profit studios do it for them. If there is sufficient demand for French content, let the free market provide it. If the free market doesn't provide it, then there is insufficient demand for it.
Québécois (Score:2)
If the streaming providers give in on this, the next bill will require all French programming to be in the Québécois dialect instead of proper French.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because everybody knows English-language movies and songs do not have enough visibility on streaming platforms.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a regional law to deal with a regional language. The comparison for US would be the authorities of Hawaii/Guam/Native American reserve asking Netflix to display contents in the native language.
There is no comparison with Trump/English. Trump isn't a regional leader; English is already the language displayed by default by Netflix and there is no threat of change. A law mandating it to stay like that would be totally useless.
I don't have examples where English would be co-official in a place and Netfl
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He would be called a racist.
He's not? Half is mandate is about shipping brown people somewhere else, and now he's recently added shipping in "persecuted" white people from South Africa.
Re:Imagine if this was Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
At the same time Trump expedited the refugees from South Africa, he reversed the status of refugees from Afghanistan.
These were people who had directly helped the United States. They had demonstrated this work ethic you claim to be worried about over and over again, in incredibly difficult circumstances. Many acted as translators, and already speak English.
Trump wants to send these people back to a country where they will be tortured and killed.
The racism is obvious. The only reason you don't see it is because you choose to ignore tit.
Re: (Score:2)
and this looks like a matter of their status as temporary refugees has expired
What's with the passive voice bs? The Trump administration changed their status; it's not some clock that was already ticking, this was directly caused by Noem.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
many returned to Afghanistan willingly
Bullshit.
https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/... [unhcr.org]
why didn't anyone stop the Trump administration
I don't have the words to describe how truly fucked-up that paragraph is.
Re: (Score:2)
At least fifty of the Venezuelans that were sent to El Salvador were here legally.
https://www.cato.org/blog/50-v... [cato.org]
https://www.miamiherald.com/ne... [miamiherald.com]
Let's be clear about what happened:
- They applied for, and were granted, refugee status or some other legal status.
- The arrived in the United States legally.
- They committed no crimes while they were here.
- Trump sent them to a concentration camp in El Salvador.
These actions by the Trump administration are abhorrent and indefensible.
Re: (Score:2)
and we were talking about English. He would be called a racist.
Not if this is doing what I think it's doing. He'd be hailed as a hero.
The problem is that Netflix has a tendency to surface giant piles of content that are A. not in a language that you speak, and B. often aren't even *overdubbed* into a language that you speak. Unless you just enjoy staring at the screen and reading subtitles all the time, this is not a good user experience. But Netflix doesn't seem to care.
This proposed law will make them care.
This is a good thing. It would be better if they wrote th
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps they should arrest the person who handed out the CDLs to unqualified individuals.
Re: (Score:2)
Was there a law passed? States issue licenses, how does this work?
Re: (Score:2)
Offtopic, but true..
First hit on a Google search:
Re: (Score:2)
This is mostly about putting at least some original French-language content on the home screen. But yes, it's easy to do. Streaming services will comply and everybody will move on.
But haters are going to hate.
Re: (Score:2)
I think they mean original French-language content. There is more than enough French-language content so that it covers 20% of the default screen on Spotify or even Netflix. It's not as if they were starting from 0 anyways. They are probably at 5-10% currently. They only have to increase a bit.
Re: (Score:3)
You know that French was literally **banned** in Louisiana by a constitutional amendment until 1974, right? Children caught speaking French even faced corporal punishment in schools. So rag about "whiney Frenchies" all you want, but attempts to stamp out French language and culture in North America were very much real until very recently. The French explored most of North America and set up settlements across the continent by the early 1700s, and many places still carry anglicized French names. However, the