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FCC Lays Down the Law On Decency
Sarcasmo writes: "The FCC has taken a break from it's normal routine of censorship and, uhhhh.......censorship, to remind everyone what it wants to protect us from. The full 28 page report will tell you what words are acceptable, and what words are naughty." A quick guide: Howard Stern - BAD, Monty Python - BAD, Schindler's List - GOOD.
The one bright spot is, with a bit of luck Britney Spears will be made illegal :D but damn, that's too high a price to pay, to give up:
Assuming the FCC is not simply joking... perhaps this is a sign of the approaching final death of broadcast radio? Not only are they playing only about 20 songs over and over and over, but they cannot be 'suggestive' and intentionally prurient through suggestiveness? But gangsta rap should be okay!
I guess the major thing is to make sure radio is not the ONLY way to disseminate information...
What is disturbing, however, is that these self-appointed guardians of public decency are under the impression that motherfucker is hyphenated. For at least thirty or forty years now, motherfucker has been a non-hyphenated compound word, and can, in fact, be found in most dictionaries these days. I wonder what company's spell-checker these FCC goons proofed their document with?
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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
The problem with this is that the notional "right" that children have to be raised in an obscenity-free environment rather quickly devolves into becoming MY responsibility to raise someone else's children in an obscenity-free environment.
I know the notion of personal responsibility is somewhat passé these days, but I reiterate - if parents are unwilling to take responsibility for children that they (presumably voluntarily) produced, why should I? Believe me, my hands are full raising my own two children without taking on others that don't belong to me.
I don't ask that the government decide what my children should and shouldn't watch - I can and will do that myself. Many of the things I enjoy doing are completely unsuitable for my six-year-old son, but it would be throwing the baby out with the bath water to create a society where only those things suitable for a six-year-old were permissible.
We are, IMO, far too fixated on "the children" these days. Society and civilization exist for the benefit of all their members, not solely the next generation. We do children a disservice when we overprotect them - it renders them incapable of dealing with the wider world when they are released into it. We do children a disservice when we attempt to twist society to fit them, rather than gradually exposing them to, and preparing them to deal with the world as it exists, rather than as we think it ideally ought to be.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
The first amendment says you have the right to say things, but you never have the right to make someone else listen. Applied properly, censorship could even amount to a protection of our right to choose what we listen to. AFAIK, the FCC rules only apply to public broadcasts; if you really want to hear some censored material, there are plenty of ways to do that.
Except even with a TV and a Radio you have the right not to listen. Just use the free device known as the On/Off switch. That's right just turn the damn thing off. If you can't even take the time to teach your kids right from wrong, good from bad, reality from make believe, having the FCC tell media companies what should or should not be on TV is the least of your consern. Because your childern aren't prepared at all for the real world where everything isn't nice, homoginized, and safe. Unlimited time and unlimited patiencs is not needed. This is just an excuse because someone is wrapped up in the wrong things. Taking away someone's rights just because you haven't done your job or because you just don't think it's the correct thing to say on TV is no excuse.
Ever wondered why material like this is always on and broadcasters keep wanting to show it? Because it sells and gets viewers. If it didn't sell at all it wouldn't be on TV at all. The best way you can stop this stuff is to just boycott those stations that brodcast this material.
FCC has/is overstepping thier bounds. They are too conserned about regulating what is on TV/Radio and not conserned enough about doing their real job, making sure the spectrum is used efficently and that telecom companies aren't screwing the little guy by intentionally delaying access to their networks and stalling on the deployment of new technologies like DSL and HDTV. What is broadcast should not be their consern. Let the free market decided what is and isn't on TV. Censorship is never the answer.
Europe is better about "this". The article was talking about "offensive speech" being censored - specifically anything "obscene, indecent, or profane". Even in the UK (you know, the repressed country) plenty of obscene, indecent, and profane stuff gets aired and nobody bothers. On the Graham Norton Show last week, for example, Rikki Lake was happily saying "fuck" just because she could. There are guidelines, but after 9pm ("the watershed") more or less anything goes language wise. Same in the rest of Europe.
When ever I go over I am always bemused that a country that trumpets free speech has such bland television. At first I thought it was the advertisers. Eventually I found out it was the Government - you actually have a law prohibiting naughty words on TV and Radio. Except it doesn't just say that - "profane" brings religion into it. Thin end of the wedge (although via the Supreme Court thin ends have been driven much further than you would think possible - Abortion is based on the right to privacy??? I'm not saying it is right or wrong, merely weird) but you actually have a law that says "You can't be naughty, you can't be rude, and you can't diss God".
Have fun writing a book about the royal family in the UK
You should have a quick visit to news.bbc.co.uk and have a read about Sophie to see just how incredibly wrong this comment is. Writing about the Royals (in books, magazines, and newspapers) is very common, and most of the comments are negative. On the TV it is not unusual - after all it was on TV that Diana accused Charles of adultery.
But where does that leave the children in this situation? It's not their fault. It is that unreasonable to have some kind of limit on the obscenities that such a child could be exposed to accidentally?
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I see all these Americans discussing this as if it were an obvious and necessary aspect of any civilized country, but perhaps the FCC has gotten some details wrong.
You should travel more! In most civilized countries, the treatment of sex and "indecency" in the media is way more relaxed, and they typically have none of the problems the americans think must ensue if these "necessary evil" regulations were not enforced with an iron fist.
Fun example: In the country where they try to hide sex from the kids as much as possible, teenage pregnancies are much higher than the rest of the rich world.
The real problem is the huge and very powerful fundamentalist christian lobby in the US.
No one is stopping you from going to the porn store and buying some serious hardcore porn. The FCC is trying to keep that kind of stuff off, say, ABC during after school hours when (like it or not) lots of kids watch TV unattended. Parents like that kind of stuff.
When these become the law (it will), then people will start using words not in the list but suggest the meanings anyway. It's where all euphemisms come from - censorship.
When they become common enough they aren't euphemisms anymore, and the law will be revised to include them. Then a bunch of new euphemisms will pop up.
What a cycle. I'm expecting the size of slang dictionaries to double or triple in a few years.
Arguably, the censorship (or in this case, FCC's guideline for decency in broadcasting) seem like the lesser of two evil only in the sense that they are going after the broadcasters - we have the wonderful thing we called the Internet now that prevents us from being censored, so your average citizens aren't affected.
The camera thing is already there and is affecting the average citizen. Of course, it should be noted that only criminals who commit crimes in public places need to worry.
Isn't technology great? Too bad they don't yet have technology that will prevent you from commiting crimes instead of punishing you afterwards for commiting crimes. Perhaps embedded chips that shocks you when you are about to commit a crime, even if it is as low tech as people watching cameras and manually press a button to shock criminals in the middle of committing a crime (as opposed to a chip that can sense your brain wave patterns and knows you are thinking evil thoughts and zap you accordingly).
Perhaps a different technology will come along, say artificial genetic selection - the DNA would be modified such that all people with violent and criminal dispositions will be prevented from being born, so that all through the world, there would be a flock of docile, obedient, and possibly intelligence reduced people, except for a handful of wealthy powerful people that pay to enhance their own abilities. These people would control the world through the money and the power that they wield as a minority elite (oh, wait...).
:-)
Paragraph 3 states that obscene speech is never allowed, and the footnote on page 2 gives a three-part test, and part 2 requires "depict or describe ... sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law".
Paragraph 7 limits the scope of indecent material (which is only banned from 6 AM to 10 PM) to only "describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities".
Ok, admittedly from the examples this thing is targeted at radio broadcast, but having just read through it, I can't see any reason why it doesn't apply equally to television (and several of the case law citations are regarding television standards).
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
"The following is a news broadcast. On April 6, the FCC has released a statement on what is too indecent for broadcasting. We present for your listening pleasure and edification some segments of this publicly-available government publication:
"Following are examples of decisions where the explicit/graphic nature of the description of sexual/excretory organs or activities played a central role in the determination that the broadcast was indecent: 'God my testicles are like down to the floor...you could really have a party with these...Use them like Bocci balls.'; 'I mean to go around porking other girls with vibrating rubber products'..."
Hm. Now a government document wouldn't possibly be indecent would it?...
(oh, and if this DOES happen, you heard it here first! =})
// zyqqh
Response: Too darn bad. It's not the government's responsibility to raise children. The same logic that believes censoring TV makes sense directly applies to censoring the Internet.
Growing up, half my friends had parents who used child locks on their TVs (via cable box). That was fifteen years ago. Today a parent doesn't have to exert much effort to be responsible.
Why doesn't the FCC teach parenting classes instead? It makes as much sense as their current course of action.
You must, of * neccessity *, expose them to the bad.
KFG
...okay, guys, I know I am asking for it. But here is what I just posted in 'that other place'... You'll notice that I pose no solutions, but I do believe that I have a valid rationale for keeping this sort of tripe away from the children. I skimmed through most of the other posts and didn't see anything along these lines, so here it is. I will respond to one post that seemed to say that parents need to be more responsible in raising their kids in this environment: parents cannot raise their children effectively in the current environment. There's just too many influences, and IMHO, too many Evil influences. Read on to get a feel for my viewpoint, and then feel free to respond! These are my thoughts after long deliberation, so please do me a favor and give me due consideration. Don't dis me. And try not to flame me as an AC; you're abusing the system and I won't respond. *sigh* that said, here goes:
.45 caliber pistol is posed oh-so-close to a pair of ruby-red lips), they opened up a door to something that ultimately had to lead (like the frog in the pan of water on the stove, slowly until it's boiling) to what we have today. And you know what? It shocks you, it turns your head, and it even stimulates you (that is, until you are numb). But it is guaranteed to Never fulfill you. In fact, it is guaranteed to frustrate you and provoke your anxiety.
:)
After reading the passages in the FCC document (highly entertaining!), can anyone really defend their airing on the public airwaves? Those of us who are old enough to appreciate the content can obtain it readily from other sources, and I maintain that it is in the best interests of our society that we protect the children (do it for the little children!!! Of course, who else do we do these things for?) from being exposed to this information. Ironically, the same moralists are the ones who applauded the release of the Starr Report in our local newspaper. The Ends do not justify the Means, but apparently they do for Them.
Now as to my reasoning as to why this information is harmful. I am against most of the methods employed by the Christian Right, as I believe they
are neither Christian nor Right, but I had to figure out for myself what constituted the reasoning behind the Laws of God, if only to figure out my own morality. What I came up with is this: the brand of Love that is portrayed to children between mutually consenting adults is important to their understanding of what is Right and Wrong. I think that a perfectly idealized love* is almost non-sexual in nature. In this idealized Love of, say a Man for a Woman, he cherishes her and holds her more important than his own life. In any case, the object of his love is her soul, her essence. This sort of Love is self-renewing and always fulfilling. It is the sort of love that grows with time in a deeper intimacy and abiding trust. The heart and the soul of the lover become filled with Joy and Life takes on a meaning that transcends the ordinary day-to-day events.
In contrast, the sort of attraction a Man has for a Woman as portrayed by these shock jocks totally denies the soul of the person, and objectifies
her as mere flesh. The problem here is that the object of desire is the flesh itself, which has no soul, so there is nothing further to do once the
object has been er, conquered. This leads to immense dissatisfaction in the psyche, as one realizes that what one thinks he has been searching for is found, and then it's done. It then becomes like a drug, it's all about one's own sexual needs, not about any joining of souls, and the problem becomes one of maintaining the excitement and the impetus for continuing pursuit of this inner drive. The only way to maintain That kind of high, is, like a drug, to increase the dosage - you must next have two partners, or use vibrators, whips, chains, multiple partners. You cheat, you tomcat around, you pay money for it. It is very much like the current climate in radio. Once advertisers learned that titillation turns heads (walk through any video store and count the number of times a big ol'
But that of course is the nature of evil, to consume your soul. You learn that the hard way at your own peril.
So we as a society should continue to punish those who, in their own misguided notion of fun and need to create an allegience among our youth, would teach them to be titillated by such porn. Because there is a much more important way to Love. Because our Children need to learn that first. This will save them when they are exposed to the various genitalia flouted at them over the course of their lives.
Yes. Do it... for the children.
(*- By the way. In a perfectly idealized love? The sex is Great!)
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What is the point of govt trying to censor things? Decent and Indecent is not something that I want decided for me by a bunch of burocrats that dont have a clue about me. I am intelligent to decide what I want to watch and what I dont.
I will concede the point that filtering in Public Libraries becuase of kids, etc. I know that people will bitch and whine and complain until that happens.
I say let the individual decide what they want to see and what they dont. Individual freedoms are what make this country great. I know people will say we need to protect our kids, etc, why dont you WATCH your kids and PAY ATTENTION to them and then maybe you wont have to install that piece of software that your kid can crack anyway.
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
If you look at some of the fines levied against some parties (mainly Howard Stern), you would know the FCC is mainly targeting companies that can dish out money for the hefty fines.
Last I saw NYPD Blue upped their show to include the word asshole, yet they don't get fined, but should Howard say it, the fines would roll in.
Thats the problem with American media (television, radio), they're (the FCC) so strung out on typical bullshit, freedom of speech is equivalent to "Freedom to Pay for your Speech Should it Offend Us". At least Euro television doesn't have anal intentions of fining anyone that uses a word, no matter if people like it or not.
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