I really agree with you both that Big Government has no place in controlling who you choose to marry or on your reproductive decisions.
And that has what to do with censorship?
Fed Censorship is Coming
Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?
Swear words
Again that's not content. That's style.
And again when they act it's because we ask them to.
The FCC sets program standards
No, they do not. Nobody has any "programming standards" -- you broadcast what you want. If the public decides Janet Jackson's nipple is unacceptable, they react to the complaint. If the public decides Chase Utley uttering the word "*******" is acceptable, they do nothing. Simple as that.
Fed Censorship is Coming
Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?
Swear words
Again that's not content. That's style.
And again when they act it's because we ask them to.
The FCC sets program standards
No, they do not. Nobody has any "programming standards" -- you broadcast what you want. If the public decides Janet Jackson's nipple is unacceptable, they react to the complaint. If the public decides Chase Utley uttering the word "*******" is acceptable, they do nothing. Simple as that.
Obscene Indecent and Profane Broadcasts FCC Complaints
It is a violation of federal law to air obscene programming at any time or indecent programming or profane language from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Congress has given the FCC the responsibility for administratively enforcing these laws. The FCC may revoke a station license, impose a monetary forfeiture or issue a warning if a station airs obscene, indecent or profane material.
Uncensored2008 said:
We know that once you have entered a thread, it's all downhill from there.Uncensored2008 said:
We know you only trust ThinkProgress and the other Soros hate sites, Jake.
Nothing, looney tunes is just being the idiot he is.
I really agree with you both that Big Government has no place in controlling who you choose to marry or on your reproductive decisions.
And that has what to do with censorship?
Well that was all fine and nice, but it is a fact the FCC has placed controls on political communication in the past.They attempted to fine CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".Fed Censorship is Coming
Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?
That isn't intellectual content. And further, what FCC does in that case and all such cases is respond to complaints from the public; any reaction is in the context of whether the licensee is serving the public interest, in light of the fact that the public is complaining about it. While the reasoning in that case was stupid and puts us collectively on the intellectual level of a toddler who's just discovered poo-poos, it does reflect our prudish culture (or at least the prudish face we pretend to have because we don't collectively have the guts to stand up and say, 'so what') -- nevertheless any action taken would be in the context of the question of whether the broadcast service is "serving the public interest, convenience and necessity" -- which is and has always been the standard for having a broadcast license. But that's only for a broadcast license.
More broadly it's aimed at putting a barrier up to the prospect of some licensee putting porn on the air (which is by definition and design easily accessible to everybody). It would certainly sell but as it is it's confined to off-the-air media such as cable... and internet, which, I don't know if y'all know this, contains way way far more than Janet Jackson's nipple. But just as the airwaves are established as prudish, the internets are established as nothing of the sort, and in both cases the establishment is going to propagate what the status quo has defined.
Perhaps more to the point, FCC's mission since its inception has always been to make the media in question more accessible to more people. Fifty-ish years ago it required owners of AM/FM outlets to run different programming on each, in order to kick-start FM (i.e. if you didn't have an FM radio you were missing something); then it did required TV sets to receive the then-new UHF channels to give them a chance (and in turn, give the public access to them); in the internet age it's made efforts to get that widely distributed.
But only in the broadcast world, i.e. what is literally on the air, does it issue licenses, and that's where the requirement to "serve the public interest, convenience and necessity" is in play (which means it does not apply to, say, cable TV). The license system is in place for the same reason the Fairness Doctrine was -- because the broadcast space is finite, and only so many stations can fit on the dial before they start interfering with each other. That is the vast majority of what FCC does.
Now if FCC were about controlling content, it would have already been doing that with cable TV (and for that matter, with telephones). But it doesn't. Mainly what it does is ensures a level playing field for the public's benefit -- that we get FM as well as AM; that we get space set aside for public broadcasting (though hardly enough); that we get a choice of phone providers; that we get TV cable service with a range of programming including local access; that we get converters on request when they shift frequencies for digitial; that we get or approach universal access to internet. None of that is restricting content; if anything it's doing the opposite.
And Net Neutrality, as designed, is following the same pattern. Just as it doesn't dictate what your public radio station broadcasts but simply ensures you have one; just as it doesn't prescribe what has to be on your TV cable but simply ensures you have a public access channel; just as it doesn't dictate what you can say on the phone but simply ensures you don't have to get it from a monopoly -- it wouldn't dictate what can be on the internet but simply prevent ISP-X from throttling your access. It has no basis to do so in the first place. We don't need an FCC license for a phone; we don't need an FCC license to run a TV cable channel. And there's no reason we should because the technical media they use are, for practical purposes, not finite.
Well that was all fine and nice, but it is a fact the FCC has placed controls on political communication in the past.They attempted to fine CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".Fed Censorship is Coming
Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?
That isn't intellectual content. And further, what FCC does in that case and all such cases is respond to complaints from the public; any reaction is in the context of whether the licensee is serving the public interest, in light of the fact that the public is complaining about it. While the reasoning in that case was stupid and puts us collectively on the intellectual level of a toddler who's just discovered poo-poos, it does reflect our prudish culture (or at least the prudish face we pretend to have because we don't collectively have the guts to stand up and say, 'so what') -- nevertheless any action taken would be in the context of the question of whether the broadcast service is "serving the public interest, convenience and necessity" -- which is and has always been the standard for having a broadcast license. But that's only for a broadcast license.
More broadly it's aimed at putting a barrier up to the prospect of some licensee putting porn on the air (which is by definition and design easily accessible to everybody). It would certainly sell but as it is it's confined to off-the-air media such as cable... and internet, which, I don't know if y'all know this, contains way way far more than Janet Jackson's nipple. But just as the airwaves are established as prudish, the internets are established as nothing of the sort, and in both cases the establishment is going to propagate what the status quo has defined.
Perhaps more to the point, FCC's mission since its inception has always been to make the media in question more accessible to more people. Fifty-ish years ago it required owners of AM/FM outlets to run different programming on each, in order to kick-start FM (i.e. if you didn't have an FM radio you were missing something); then it did required TV sets to receive the then-new UHF channels to give them a chance (and in turn, give the public access to them); in the internet age it's made efforts to get that widely distributed.
But only in the broadcast world, i.e. what is literally on the air, does it issue licenses, and that's where the requirement to "serve the public interest, convenience and necessity" is in play (which means it does not apply to, say, cable TV). The license system is in place for the same reason the Fairness Doctrine was -- because the broadcast space is finite, and only so many stations can fit on the dial before they start interfering with each other. That is the vast majority of what FCC does.
Now if FCC were about controlling content, it would have already been doing that with cable TV (and for that matter, with telephones). But it doesn't. Mainly what it does is ensures a level playing field for the public's benefit -- that we get FM as well as AM; that we get space set aside for public broadcasting (though hardly enough); that we get a choice of phone providers; that we get TV cable service with a range of programming including local access; that we get converters on request when they shift frequencies for digitial; that we get or approach universal access to internet. None of that is restricting content; if anything it's doing the opposite.
And Net Neutrality, as designed, is following the same pattern. Just as it doesn't dictate what your public radio station broadcasts but simply ensures you have one; just as it doesn't prescribe what has to be on your TV cable but simply ensures you have a public access channel; just as it doesn't dictate what you can say on the phone but simply ensures you don't have to get it from a monopoly -- it wouldn't dictate what can be on the internet but simply prevent ISP-X from throttling your access. It has no basis to do so in the first place. We don't need an FCC license for a phone; we don't need an FCC license to run a TV cable channel. And there's no reason we should because the technical media they use are, for practical purposes, not finite.
You asked, "When has the FCC ever done that?"
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Fairness Doctrine.
