Slashdot Mirror
FCC Pitches Free, Bowdlerized Wireless Internet Access
Aidtopia writes "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing auctioning off an unused part of the 25 MHz spectrum on the condition that the winner provide free wireless Internet access. The proposal sets coverage targets that ramp up to 95% of the population within 10 years. The catch: the provider must filter out obscene content." I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.
I wonder if this is a less than subtle way of the FCC executing a power grab, first establish censoring on a free network, then start moving it to the current networks (although this would not be needed if the enough people use this as their "last mile", you just look at their traffic there).
I wonder what definition of "obscene" the FCC would like to use.
In the US, 'obscene' has a clear legal meaning: material that meets the three-pronged (I said 'prong,' huhuuhuh) test established in Miller v. California:
1. 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
2. the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law
3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Such material isn't protected speech. I think it should be, but there you go: it's hardly surprising that the FCC doesn't want it on a freely-accessible broadcast network. It's an infinitely more reasonable position for them to take than if they were demanding that providers filter "indecent" material, which is a) protected speech and b) has no strict legal definition.