Lone Activist Group Submits 99.8% of FCC Complaints

andywebz writes "Mediaweek is reporting that complaints to the FCC are rising. Powell spoke before congress, detailing that the complaints are up from 14,000 in 2002, to nearly 240,000 in 2003. There were only 350 complaints during 2000 and 2001. Powell failed to mention however that 99.8% of those complaints came from PTC (Parents Television Council). The article does mention he may have been unaware of this fact. Jonathan Rintels (president of the Center for Creative Voices in Media) commented, 'It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio.'"

Comments

PTC

[Anonymous Coward]

PTC lost a LOT of their political clout after WWE kicked their ass in court a couple years ago. Other targets should repond the same way.

Re:PTC

[nick_davison]

I just sent them:

Congress were told, recently, that complaints to the FCC are rising dramatically.

In 2000 and 2001, the FCC only received 350 complains. In 2002, 14,000. In 2003, 240,000. Clearly TV is becoming much more offensive.

Until you discover that 99.8% of all complaints are from the PTC (Parents Television Council). If you do the math, the 0.2% of complaints that aren't part of a political lobbying body amount to... 480. That's right, an increase of 130 over 2000/2001.

So, while Congress are wringing their hands over how terrible TV has got, the reality is that it's barely changed at all - but a political lobbying group who want to censor TV is creating a vastly disproportionate impact by effectively spamming the crap out of the FCC.

The real truth is that there are roughly 1.5 complaints for every MILLION people in the U.S. - i.e. NO major issues with the content of TV. That a tiny minority interest group can so skew the figures as to make it appear that the ration's as high as one in a thousand is, frankly, disgusting. That Congress are being fed their lies, rather than having the truth pointed out, is even worse.

Though it does beg the question: What would happen if a small group - say a thousand people, sent a letter to the FCC each day complaining that shows didn't go far enough with their nudity, violence and profanity. They'd outnumber the conservative complaints 3:2 for even those small numbers.

Something appealed about the irony of using their own website to complain about their actions. As they helpfully noted: All five FCC commissioners have been sent a copy of your email.

What about Howard Stern

[yorkpaddy]

I know that Stern pushed for his listeners to complain about Oprah Winfrey (?). Oprah got away with saying things about vaginas and sexual practices that Stern was fined for

Re:What about Howard Stern

[bani]

the problem is that after stern brought the issue up, a LOT of people filed complaints about oprah, many orders of magnitude more than complained about stern. the fcc even admitted this!

and STILL oprah hasn't been fined. only stern has.

oprah is loved so she can break the rules however and whenever she likes, while stern is reviled and gets severely punished for the tiniest infraction.

Re:What about Howard Stern

[killjoe]

They didn't fine Janet, they fined CBS. CBS has also dared to critize the president.

"Do you see Al Franken being fined?"

Not yet. But it will happen soon I am sure.

so sad.

[smcavoy]

especially when you consider in Canada they broadcast (i.e. no cable needed) the sopranos (at 11pm). Heck even CityTv broadcasts softcore porn after 12.

Keep in Mind

[Greyfox]

A small-but-vocal minority got prohibition passed, too. This is nothing new.

If you don't want some vocal group imposing its religious values on you, I suppose you'll have to be just as vocal. Of course, prohibition was quite profitable for a lot of Americans...

that's not how the FCC operates

[SethJohnson]

You are misinterpreting how the FCC polices indecency. It doesn't watch channels. It responds to complaints that provide transcripts of the alledgedly offensive broadcasts. The PTC and other American Moralists have been streaming complaints against Howard Stern for over a decade. That's why he's been getting fined.

The Oprah Winfrey example clearly illustrates the hypocrisy in how the FCC arbitrarily chooses to levy fines. If you're a friend to the mainstream, you're safe. If you're outside the status quo, watch out.

Here's a link to the transcripts. Judge for yourself if the FCC is being fair.

Re:Let's anti-protest!

[speakspeak]

STOP THE PRESSES!! We're on our way, promise. We are SpeakSpeak (and so are you!). SpeakSpeak.org will be functional by early January. From SpeakSpeak's site, you will be able to generate a personalized letter to FCC board members, advertisers, and your own personal political representatives thanking them for protecting free speech and for standing up to religious fringe groups. Like I said, the site will be fully up by January, barring disasters. By the end of this week, you will be able to sign up for 100%-ironclad-never-sold-or-shared email updates at speakspeak.org. Hey, maybe I'll even get that done tonight....

Denial of "Service"

[Fzz]

You're pretty much right.

If the FCC is getting hundreds of thousands of complaints, then there's no way for them to actually investigate these complains. So probably all they can do is count them.

What this means is that any organization that can muster large numbers of complaints about random programs they don't like can cause the system to collapse completely. There'd be no effective way for the FCC to use the complaint system as an alert mechanism.

The only problem with this is that the slashdot crowd aren't nearly as good at organizing as the PTC. So the question is whether we can write python scripts with output that is not detectably different than the PTC's form letters?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Let's anti-protest!

[Anonymous Coward]

I visited Norway some months ago. A large retail chain, Rema 1000, the norwegian equivalent of Wal-Mart had a funny one.

Child to Mom: Mom how do you create a child?
Mom: Ehh.. *silence* ... You know Mom and Dad... ehh first Mom lies in the bed ehh... and then Dad lies in the Bed...ehh.. And then Dad...
Child: You mean like fucking ?
Mom: Ehh.. *very emarrasing silence*

Advertiser-voice: Rema 1000; the simple is somethimes the best. (their slogan)

I would like to see Wal-Mart do something like that on public TV.

Re:Small group...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

Is it wrong but every single show from that their list that I have enjoyed or at least considered watching is rated with a red light, and almost every single piece of lowest-common-denominator derivative garbage I checked is yellow light or better?

On the bright side, I am thinking of writing to them to thank them for providing a good method for evaluating new TV shows. Just search for the ones with the most red lights.

Anyway, I must be off now to use cuss words and thinking unwholesome thoughts about sexual issues, all whilst advocating non-peaceful solutions for complex problems.

Re:They must be stopped.

[frank_adrian314159]

10 'Best' Shows

Well, I'm tuning back to see when they drop their #1 show, Joan of Arcadia. You see, the other week, one of the characters who plays God (who occasionally also appears in the form of a *gasp* woman on the show, as well) had the temerity to say that He (i.e., God) had so many religions because people had so many way's of relating to Him, acknowledging Hinduism as an example. I'm sure that goes over well with the thumpers that put that show as numero uno on their list! Like I said, I'm anxious to see what they have to say when they next revise the list, because I'm pretty sure neither polythism nor spiritual eclecticism is high on their list of core values.

Dear PTC activists

[ArcticCelt]

Dear PTC activists, We are of the bread of human being that through history promoted science, technology and new ways of communication. Things like The Internet, television, radio and many others exist because of the hard work of many free spirits before us that we admire and from whom we are always trying to take the flame.

In another hand you are of the kind who claimed that the earth was flat and that continue to claim that evolution is non-existent. Your puritan and conservative way of thinking comes from those who have done everything to slow down the research and accomplishment of the first group. If humanity has listened you from the beginning, we will probably still be chasing animals with rocks and sticks and living in caves.

Please stop censuring those technologies that you did not contribute to create, in fact why don't you simply stop using them at all and go communicate though bushes on fire or something else you believe in?

Sincerely yours.

Here's a letter I sent to them...

[NitroWolf]

I sent this letter to the parentstv.org email address. Maybe send them similar letters?

Hello,

I'm not sure who I might be addressing at editor@parentstv.org, so I apologize for the lack of personalization.

I am somewhat curious about your organization and why it exists. I realize you probably get all sorts of crank emails, spam, etc... So I expect this email to most likely get ignored.

I don't like most of what's shown on TV today... I rarely watch TV as a matter of fact. However, I find that trying to prevent other people from doing so is a) futile and b) wrong. I am wondering why your organization thinks it's ok to dictate what other people do in the privacy of thier own homes?

I understand you are working under a "save the children" banner, and that's fine. But is it not more logical for a parent to parent, as opposed to expecting the government or TV and radio stations to do it for them? Why does your organization feel that it's acceptable to deny programming to people who may find it funny/interesting/worth watching? Why do you feel that your "rights" override other's "rights" to watch what they please?

As I said, I have no real agenda; I don't watch the TV shows you label as "Bad" nor do I watch the ones you label as "Good." If either or both of them are cancled or taken off the air, I don't really care one whit. What I do care about is your organizations internal justification for censoring programming because parents can't be bothered to actually monitor what their children watch. I have a very real problem with organizations like yours dictating to others what's "right" and what isn't.

It's time to stop blaming TV, Radio, Newspaper and other media for the poor condition some children find themselves in, and it's time to start looking at the parents. I know it's hard to accept responsibilty for the majority of parents that are part of your organization, but the very real facts of the matter are that any parent that joins your organization is a poor parent and is obviously incapable of taking care of a child in an appropriate manner. They rely on the TV to babysite or educate then children, when that is a job for the parents themselves, not to be shunned off on the anonymous TV screen.

As I said, of course I do not expect this letter to be given any serious thought by the people of your organization. It's often hard, if not impossible to convince a zealot that they are misguided and doing harm rather than good. It's a very sad state of affairs and a very sad day for the nation when people with misguided political agendas are able to influence freedom of speech and democracy. Shame on your ogranization for further erroding our right to free speech and freedom of expression. Your ogranization is part of the problem, not a part of the solution.

Thank you for your time,

XXXXXX

Re:I don't think so.

[Nogami_Saeko]

Funny how it's always the religions who are trying to restrict other people's freedoms...

They don't like something, so YOU shouldn't be allowed to do it.

Nice

N.