Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court to Hear FCC Indecency Case
MachineShedFred writes "The Supreme Court of the United States has announced that it will be hearing the FCC's appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that the FCC has changed its policy on fleeting expletives without adequate explanation. It's now on the FCC to explain to the Supreme Court why its policy has changed. This is also the first time the Supreme Court has heard a major 'broadcast indecency' case in 30 years."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
How blatantly arbitrary and unfair. Why is the FCC flipping out over "fck" on the radio after this went unpunished!
Because the FCC only regulates over the air broadcasts. The FCC *is* arbitrary, unfair, and evil, but you should learn a bit before criticizing them, or no one will take you seriously.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
A couple of local DJs, in order to avoid fines over the word "shit", have taken to regularly saying "shite". Why in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is one any more inappropriate than the other?!? This is just farking silly. If a radio station/TV station/whatever airs stuff that you find offensive or inappropriate for your kids, change the fuggin station...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I am baffled that American media is so afraid of offending it's viewers and readers that AP is indulging in self censorship to such an extent that they don't even write the word shit in the article. "Cher used the phrase "F--- 'em" and a Dec. 10, 2003, Billboard awards show in which reality show star Nicole Richie said, "Have you ever tried to get cow s--- out of a Prada purse? It's not so f------ simple." What I find most disturbing is that people who find words like fuck, ass, cunt etc being too offensive to be broadcasted often are the very same that shout the most when Muslims object against publication of images depicting Mohammed.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
If you don't like it, you're free to leave the room or change the channel. If I don't like censorship, what options do I have?
And why are your feelings more important than mine?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You don't have the right to not be offended.
You can, however, criticize them for their impotence in linguistic capabilities. This is the nature of free speech and freedom of expression.
Yeah.... Let's go with that belief.
Because obviously someone uses a profane word because they lack the eloquence to call someone a bumbling ignorant uncultured swine of a simpleton. And obviously when someone wishes to damn someones soul to eternally burn in the fires of hell, they must say so in such verbage, instead of just simplifying it to "damn you" with the rest understood.
Obviously people use profane words because they lack the vocabulary to use others words, and NOT because certain words have three key features:
1. understood nearly universally within the culture
2. carry a weight to them, especially when said very sparsly
3. convey the point they are intended with little room for misunderstanding
True one could be complex with their insults and verbose with their exclamations, but that would truly render them useless.
What good is it to call someone a hedonistic glutton if they don't understand what you're saying?
You would feel good you've insulted someone who can't understand what you're saying, and that is a worthless act. At least if you call them a lazy fatass they understand that they need to get up and move, in your opinion.
I would argue that a well placed fuck or damn is more important than a good vocabulary. More so when you reserve your usage of them, as people notice when someone who rarely does so, curses.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Why do you get to define what sort of language is permissible and what kind isn't? I would argue that censorship is vandalism of language, as quite often there's nothing as expressive as a well used profanity.
There is no objective measure of what language is lower or higher than another. It's all just words.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene!"
- Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Why should parents complain to the station? It has the same effect as censorship. I would state that adults should a) not be so easily offended and b) realize that while they may disprove, nobody else in the world should care, and move on with the lives.
As Lenny Bruce said, "If they can take away your right to say 'fuck', they can take away your right to say 'fuck the government'". And that's a message that deserves to be broadcast.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Common convention defines it. So does common sense.
No they don't. Otherwise, the Supreme Court would have nothing to rule upon.
Example: Is the word "nigger" allowed?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The Supreme Court chooses to hear roughly 100 cases per year from a pool of some 7,500 petitions. After not touching the issue of broadcast language for 30 years, at least four Justices agreed to hear such a case now. Is this an effort by the conservative wing of the Court to uphold the FCC's (and the Bush Administration's) position that some censorship is required and legitimate? Perhaps, but I think this case might be about something else.
The Appeals Court did not rule that the FCC had abridged speech or press freedoms in these cases, but instead that the FCC's policy was not sufficiently well justified. There are standards for the behavior of regulatory agencies like the FCC that require them to spell out in sufficient detail why they've made a change in the rules. The Appeals Court ruled that the FCC had failed to meet these standards. That Court also advised the FCC it didn't think there was a way the Commission could implement its intended policy consititutionally. Since the Supremes are really ruling on the procedural matter, the question of why they took this case becomes even more cloudy.
I suspect the Bushies are defending other cases where the issue is whether a regulatory agency has provided sufficient justification for changing course. Rules like these restrict the president's ability to change the regulatory regime since opponents of the changes can go to court claiming the agency didn't fulfill its obligations. All those proponents of a strong Executive in the Administration like Dick Cheney would probably love to see the Supremes agree that the FCC had done its job.
I wish we could learn who voted for cert, but those votes are secret.
Your arguments don't hold water. "Because I say so" isn't an argument at all.
And profanity absolutely can be used for powerful artistic effect. Case in point, Alan Ginsberg's "Howl", ruled not obscene by the Supreme Court 50 years ago.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Appearently is okay to let your children watch the news reports of school shootings so they get the idea to do it themselves rather be responsible and in touch with your child enough to know that A) watching such thing isn't the brightest of ideas for your unstable goth brat, B) you might actually notice they are an unstable goth brat who has no idea how good their life is compared to someone with real problems.
Slightly in line with this rant
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The FCC has pending before it "hundreds of thousands of complaints" regarding the broadcast of expletives, Clement said. He argued that the appeals court decision has left the agency "accountable for the coarsening of the airwaves while simultaneously denying it effective tools to address the problem."
I think "hundreds of thousands" is hyperbole -- I can imagine MAYBE a few tens of thousands at most. And it has been shown in the past that the vast majority of these are usually automated "copy, sign, and send" complaints coming from a very tiny group of people associated with some of the right-wing Christian watchdog groups. I seem to recall that of the complaints that came in about the infamous "wardrobe malfunction," all but a tiny handful came from ONE group's members.
I guess I'm someone who just never understood the whole concept of certain words arbitrarily being designated as "naughty." Profanity serves a purpose in language -- it can be overdone, but there are also times when it is entirely appropriate. I cringe every time I watch "Law and Order" or other crime shows and hear some gang member or drug dealer use the contrived euphemism "friggin'" -- it rings SO false and destroys the credibility of the character.
And I guess I don't understand people who are offended to the point of pathology by words. Just words. Not even necessarily the idea behind the words (which can be offensive, for much better reasons) but the words themselves. It's like hearing or using those words is some sort of magical incantation that will corrupt their children, compromise their salvation, and spell the doom of Western civilization.
The best of the bunch are the folks who condescendingly say, "The English language is so rich, there are plenty of words and synonyms -- why so you have to use THOSE words?" And my response is: if you truly appreciate the breadth and variety of the language, why are you trying to LIMIT the number of words that can be used?
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Some people are offended by the use of the n-word. Should that censorship be overturned? Would you like it if every show on prime-time TV started using that word all the time?
If it bothered me, I'd watch something else. If enough people watched something else, broadcasters would stop saying things that drove away their viewers.
There are many other things I could fit in instead of the n-word. Isn't preventing certain kinds of... let's call it deviant pornography... from being shown on TV censorship? Are you arguing against that as well?
Yes, of course. Let the viewers decide.
Which is more likely to be harmful: no cursing, or tons of it?
Censorship is immeasurably more harmful. We cannot let the government get in the habit of prohibiting speech it doesn't like.
"And why are your feelings more important than mine?"
Think about it this way, people who advocate censorship believe they have a right not to be offended. That right should apply equally to me and my offense at censorship. It's an inherently contradictory position. As for me, I don't think I have a right not to be offended, but we do have rights such as freedom of speech, freedom from religion, etc, that should be sufficient to prevent the government from censoring.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That the line exists is not the point. The point is that the line can be moved.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
"Your vandalism of the language is less important than the sensibilities of others that would prefer to hear tracts of communications that aren't littered by detritus, poop-language, banal references to sex, and other excreta."
...and because they are your views, they must be right even though they are totally arbitrary.
Why? What is it about certain words constitutes "vandalism of the language"?
"I/we/they deserve a common communications over the free and public airwaves that's free of obscenity."
Why?
"If you want to color your world with such muck, it is your choice to lower yourself to this standard. Instead, lift to one that's free of it."
Why is such a thing lowering a standard? The standard is arbitrary. Avoiding it is not lifting either. Your arguments are predicated on the correctness of your point of view. Try saying something compelling.
" On private media, do what you will-- including this one. If you feel compelled to spew, do it in a place where your choices don't sully the common good."
An arbitrary definition of "common good". Free expression of thought is for the common good yet restriction of vocabulary inhibits that.
"Your feelings, scatalogical or obscene, have merit, but not with in the context of a public place."
Obscene yes, but only because "obscene" is defined in precisely that way. You are simply circular language here. It's good to know you consider scatological topics to have merit, but that's not surprising considering your point of view. Eat it up, baby.
"Do I use any of these? Occasionally, within private context, and not on the public airwaves-- which is the context of the post."
What constitutes obscenity changes with time and regulations barring it are arbitrary. Back when communications resources were limited, the government could justify regulating usage of precious public property. Now, such justifications are hard to sustain. If you want to save yourself from challenging language, then choose your sources accordingly. You have no right and are not "deserving" of forcing your morality or your definition of "obscenity" on everyone else. We aren't limited to a few channels anymore and obscenity regulations need to disappear.
You live in America, yes? Swearing *is* common convention. Your elitism does not negate reality.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Such provocation within the context of civil discourse has no place-- on the public airwaves What if my show has nothing to do with civil discourse? What if it's a documentary on gang culture, or prison life, or the war movie mentioned in the article? Clearly, your black and white view not only has nothing to do with common sense, but it's also a smokescreen for your own prudery.
Fact is, that's how lots of people talk, so banning it accomplished nothing but censorship.
For every group you can define that would find offense to the word fuck used in public - I can find a larger one who is not offended created using the criteria used to define yours. And by the time you create a definition that disallows a comparison group worthy of notice, you will have so over defined your social standard that it will be nothing more than a minority.
Common civility is defined by common action. If the action is becoming so common that it cannot be enforced against, your whole argument is meaningless. Civility is perfunctory or formal politeness, by its definition. Politeness is a culturally defined thing, by its definition, not an absolutely defined thing. It's not the speed of light in a vacuum, or Pi.
Acting as if the definition of civility you want to be the standard is the standard, and then dismissing everyone else who opposes as "enflamed" is passive aggressive and not conducive to free thought or discussion. It's using word choices that don't devolve to a least common denominator of junk words, ones that inevitably provoke. That is counter to the definition of common, mathematically and semantically. The lowest common denominator is always going to be the most represented. Therefore, it is probably accepted by most people. Most people deciding an action is OK is how civility is determined in a society. If you want to argue otherwise please be ready to explain what the "advancement" of culture means, and how geographic locals create differing social norms that transcend ubiquitous assumptions of "polite".
Your assumption that certain words are only used for provocation instead of the most efficient method of communicating a concept within context is plain ignorant. You want to remove context and intent from the equation altogether in order to make your socially programmed response to certain aural stimuli easier to socially disonate into your narrow world view.
What a joke.
"You can prick your finger, but you can't finger your prick." etc.
sic transit gloria mundi
Say what you want by the stove. If I have a microphone connected to a live ABC feed, then kindly blurt something else-- or at least give one a chance to explain the unique circumstances. No one is trying to stifle speech here. Instead, the argument is about what goes over the public (not private) airwaves.
Yet what if I feel that the extreme degree of my displeasure can only properly be expressed by utilizing very specific words.
If this were over private airwaves, I could understand censorship. But these are public, and the purpose of the government is to ensure that the broadcasters don't go beyond the spectrum which is allocated to them, and to provide certain services to the government such as the emergency broadcast systems.
I find it insulting that the government seems to find the female nipple obscene while the male nipple is wholesome. The government should manage the spectrum, not the content.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Yes, it is true that screaming "fire" in a crowded theater could potentially hurt people. Screaming "shit" on the television? I fail to see the potential for damage there. Could you please provide an example that illustrates swearing on TV's ability to cause harm?
BTW, a lot of things which are allowed on TV are designed to bypass the rational mind and evoke emotional responses in other people against their will. They're called ads.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace