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FCC Delays Vote On Cable TV Regulation
Tech.Luver recommends a story unfolding at the FCC, where Chairman Kevin Martin delayed a vote on a report that would open the door to more agency control over the cable television industry. Analysts say that Martin lacked support to pass the measure. The delayed vote was on a draft report, backed by Martin, that found that cable companies control enough of the pay-TV market to warrant more oversight under the so-called "70/70" rule — 70% of US households passed by cable and 70% of those with access to cable service subscribing to it. The cable industry disputed the figures in the report, and Martin's two fellow Republican commission members also expressed doubts.
Who said anything about censorship? This was a push to get more regulatory control over the cable industry in order to do things like force a la carte subscription options. You could argue that government has no place to regulate private industry like that, but that has nothing to do with free speech or censorship.
Also, the FCC doesn't cover cable-only channels like FX (lots of "shit" and near nudity there with shows like The Shield and Nip/Tuck, with only self-regulation stopping them from going further), in terms of censorship. They cover broadcast channels that then happen to be re-distributed via cable.
Congress can't make it illegal for you to say "shit" or "fuck" or show a tit on TV, but they don't have to allow you to use the public airwaves to do it.
TFA is light on details, but it seems the proposal that was withdrawn was something about requiring cable companies to play material from minority-owned small businesses on the "excess channels" they don't use. Still questionable, but not "OMG the FCC wants to censor my cable TV!"
And BTW, the "fuck the FCC" people might want to consider that the fight here is between the FCC and CABLE COMPANIES about stuff like whether they should be required to provide a la carte channel options. Stuff that the cable companies may not want, but which doesn't seem to have a whole lot of bearing on free-speech issues. If you want to argue that a government bureaucracy is worse than a corporate oligarchy, that's a fair stance, but having both filed federal taxes and tried to get a decent internet plan from Comcast, I'm ambivalent.
YA!!! Fuck the FCC!!
I just bought a russian made transmitter (runs of rancid potatoes) in order to broadcast my own free channel about cats. C E T network. I'm having difficulties with selecting a stable frequency (russian letters are funny), so anything goes... (usually everybody's cell phone reception within a mile of the transmitter). The FCC doesn't like me having freedoms, and have been hot on my tail, so I installed the device on top of a garbage truck that does the neighborhood rounds daily.
I just wish the government would stay away from my private business. All they want is to protect monopoly of OLD moneys. Back in early '90s I set up my own beeper service, but got violently shut down. Apparently I was 'interfering' with aeroplanes and police business communications. Assholes. I think it's about high time to have airwave anarchy. Let the strongest signal win! Bring it on PBS! You may win elsewhere, but on my block it's gonna be all cats, all the time!
The current situation of constant rate increases far in excess of inflation and retarded technological innovation is definitive proof that sometimes government regulation is sorely needed. I strongly suspect that if you were a coal miner you'd be rather happy that the gov't has rules preventing you from working 15 hour days, 7 days a week, with no air filters. The next time you're in a car accident, you probably won't consider that it's government regulations that mandated crumple zones, seat belts, air bags, and other innovations that saved your life. Open your eyes and you might see that government regulations are not always bad.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007