Day: February 27, 2014

Language agency orders boutique to stop English-only Facebook posts

Quebec’s language police have ordered a small business owner in the Gatineau region to stop making posts to Facebook in English.

Eva Cooper is the owner of a fashion boutique named Delilah in the Parc in Chelsea, Quebec, which has a sister store in Ottawa. Both stores have their own Facebook pages, and last week the Office de la langue francaise sent Cooper a letter saying her Quebec store’s page could no longer make posts solely in English.

Cooper said she was shocked her Facebook page was flagged by the language agency., however the OLF does not go searching for violations, but has said repeatedly that it only responds to complaints.

Cooper has asked the OLF to send her the notice again–this time in English–but she has yet to receive it. Cooper said it is time for language laws to be updated in order to make the rules surrounding social media clear, since only people who request to follow her store’s page normally see it.

“Nobody’s paid me a membership fee to be part of my Facebook page,” said Cooper. “It’s up to them to like us, so that’s where I think there’s a bit of a grey zone.” She has been given until March 10 to come up with ways to address the complaint or face a fine.

“I’ve obviously insulted someone and I feel bad about that. But at the end of the day I never thought that the laws extended to Facebook,” said Cooper.

Several weeks ago the OLF ordered a two-man public relations firm Provocateur Communications to create a French version of its website.

At the time a spokesperson for the language agency said article 52 of the Charter of the French language, which states catalogues, brochures and similar publications published by a business must be in French, also applied to websites.

Riiiiiight. Seriously. Someone got butthurt and now the language police are not only going to spend money they don’t have on unimportant shit, all the while making the province look stupid. Again.

Fucking idiots.