Is there a problem with Twitter and Facebook being used as a generic catch-all for social media?
Professor John Naughton of the Open University believes there is, and wrote about the subject in the Observer (Sunday 19 June). "Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars," he argues, "when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition?"
The French media regulator, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA), has banned explicit mentions of Twitter and Facebook on air - except in news stories involving those companies - on the grounds that excessive brand promotion is anti-competitive.
Could the BBC go the same way? After all, the corporation would never mention the brand 'Hoover' as a generic term for vacuum cleaner, although my mother did. All her life.
I remember when, watching Blue Peter in the 1970s, I noticed brand names were assiduously obscured with tape or scrubbed off bottles of washing-up liquid using wire wool, all in the interests of commercial fair play.
(Incidentally, I'm sure everyone recognised the mild, green variety of washing-up liquid from the shape of the bottle and the distinctive red cap. That's clever branding for you.)
So, I wonder if the mainstream media is naively taking the dominant commercial brands and pretending that they're generic? If that's the case, Mark Zuckerberg and Co must be revelling in their free plug.
