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Supreme Court to Hear FCC Indecency Case

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the arbitrary-standards dept.

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."

9 of 453 comments (clear)

  1. In other news by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful
    FTA:

    Solicitor General Paul Clement ... argued that the decision "places the commission in an untenable position," powerless to stop the airing of expletives even when children are watching. Airing violent murders when children are watching? Still OK.
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    1. Re:In other news by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What, your TV doesn't have a v-chip? Actually it doesn't... But, I do have a superior system in place - Administrative controls. My kids are allowed to watch what I tell them they're allowed to watch. They have no televisions in their rooms and they'll have to get significantly more tech-savvy if they want to defeat the logging on my DVR. There's nothing technologically stopping from watching anything coming in, but we'd certainly have a chat about it if it was something objectionable.

      Technology obviated the need for "decency timeslots" a long time ago...if only parents would use it. I'd say that an obligation to parent responsibly should have superseded the need for "decency timeslots" from square one. Just my opinion...
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    2. Re:In other news by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Definitely. Such administrative controls can also be used to get children to 1) do their homework, 2) do their chores (aka "assigned tasks"), 3) eat their vegetables, and/or 4) go outside and get some fresh air before the TV can even be turned on.

      It's called parenting. When I was growing up, there were no technological controls available. We didn't have TVs in our bedrooms, and we were only allowed to watch what we were told we were allowed to watch. You watch something else and you were going to get yourself into trouble.

      The bottom line is that if you need technology to control what you're kids are watching -- you are doing something wrong.

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    3. Re:In other news by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      an obvious examples examples being frontal nudity or other explicit pornography. Nudity and pornography aren't the same thing. Exposing a child to an unclothed human body isn't likely to be psychologically damaging at all really. Pornography is the depiction of sexual acts. Nudity displayed in a non-sexual context is absolutely fine for children to see. The problem with American society is that it seems to be unable to distinguish between the two.
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    4. Re:In other news by uniquename72 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...every person has an abolute right to not be even "incidentally exposed" to some things,or have their child exposed to it, an obvious examples examples being frontal nudity or other explicit pornography. I agree -- we should ban the internet!!

      incidental exposure can be irreparably damaging I hear people say this, yet 100% of people I've asked saw porn as children and didn't turn into serial killers. Could you cite a source that isn't funded by any religious group? I find it much more likely that kids who are traumatized by such things are harmed more by their parents' serious over-reaction than by the porn itself -- Janet Jackson's breast comes to mind (as an example of the "frontal nudity" that you're so worried about).

      Funny how the world is full of 2-year-olds who see tits all the time, yet show those same tits to an 8-year-old and suddenly they've been scarred for life.
    5. Re:In other news by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have to strongly and completely disagree with one thing you said - incidental exposure can be irreparably damaging, depending on what the exposure is to. Not so much words, but every person has an abolute right to not be even "incidentally exposed" to some things,or have their child exposed to it, an obvious examples examples being frontal nudity or other explicit pornography. Great idea, but the most damaging programs on TV aren't "incidental" there designed specifically to be desired by the depraved.

      Most reality programming for example is deliberately set up to exploit the participants as the producers torture the participants for ratings.

      Dramas that portray the criminal justice system through fictional stories. In pretty much all the cases I know of they use deliberately unrealistic portrayals of both the pretty much everything involved in order to make it catchy to the sort of people that thoroughly enjoy schadenfreude.

      Reality programs which cover real crimes or real accidents.

      Realistically if you're going to try and suggest that "incidental exposure" is harmful you're going to have to demonstrate that it is more harmful than the slew of demeaning, degrading, perverse shows that the FCC thinks are A-OK for viewing.

      And I find it hard to believe that a couple of seconds of breasts on TV or a few expletives that slip through are going to cause more harm than the other programing which is already on the air.

      Really the only way for parents to deal with this is either to sit in the same room and monitor the programming, cut off anything but approved DVDs or just remove the TV and internet completely from places that kids can access.
  2. Re:Where does it stop? by Umuri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  3. Re:Where does it stop? by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  4. Re:Where does it stop? by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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