Fed Censorship is Coming

For all you supporters of “New Neutrality” - I toldya so!


FCC Commissioner: Feds May Come for Drudge


However, Pai (a Republican FCC Commissioner) said it was only the beginning. In the future, he said, “I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content… What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself.


When will you leftists learn that allow government to open the door just a little bit is an invitation for them to slam it open wide? I don't care what your excuses are, just because they claim it's to treat internet providers like public utilities doesn't mean it won't spread further.


Read the article @ Prison Planet.com FCC Commissioner Feds May Come for Drudge



Anytime you let the government control something you can expect this kind of shit.
That liberals dont understand this is the real shocker.
Or maybe they do.....


I really agree with you both that Big Government has no place in controlling who you choose to marry or on your reproductive decisions.

:rolleyes:

And that has what to do with censorship?

Nothing... that one has serious comprehension challenges. He rarely can follow his own posts.
 
Fed Censorship is Coming

Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?

:popcorn:

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 "fucking" 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.
 
Fed Censorship is Coming

Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?

:popcorn:

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 "fucking" 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.

--- none of which is defined anywhere, because it can't be. "I know it when I see it" doesn't work, never did.

Again, the ONLY way the FCC addresses this at all is if it receives complaints from the public. That means some part of the public is questioning whether Broadcast Entity X deserves a license (from us -- We the People own the airwaves). It does not monitor what anybody's doing (except maybe for technical compliance). It reacts to the public's wishes. It's how the system works.

And again, this applies only to broadcast licenses.
 
When will you leftists learn that allow government to open the door just a little bit is an invitation for them to slam it open wide? I don't care what your excuses are, just because they claim it's to treat internet providers like public utilities doesn't mean it won't spread further.

What do you mean "when will you leftists learn"? They already know, they want 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 "fucking" 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.

--- none of which is defined anywhere, because it can't be. "I know it when I see it" doesn't work, never did.

Again, the ONLY way the FCC addresses this at all is if it receives complaints from the public. That means some part of the public is questioning whether Broadcast Entity X deserves a license (from us -- We the People own the airwaves). It does not monitor what anybody's doing (except maybe for technical compliance). It reacts to the public's wishes. It's how the system works.

And again, this applies only to broadcast licenses.

You have to have a set of basic standards, which they do, in order for the public to complain.
The FCC then has the ability to enforce them how they wish.
 
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 "fucking" 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.

--- none of which is defined anywhere, because it can't be. "I know it when I see it" doesn't work, never did.

Again, the ONLY way the FCC addresses this at all is if it receives complaints from the public. That means some part of the public is questioning whether Broadcast Entity X deserves a license (from us -- We the People own the airwaves). It does not monitor what anybody's doing (except maybe for technical compliance). It reacts to the public's wishes. It's how the system works.

And again, this applies only to broadcast licenses.


You have to have a set of basic standards, which they do, in order for the public to complain.
The FCC then has the ability to enforce them how they wish.

No, you don't. You can complain on any basis you like. I'm mulling over one right now -- a radio station in Tennessee is crowding out my baseball station on the same frequency. But unlike style content, that's actually quantifiable.

Later we shall delve deeply into a case history where FCC indicated it would pull a station's license for such "obscenity" (in this case involving incest). But later, I've gotta get some work done.
 
We know that once you have entered a thread, it's all downhill from there.

irony_alert.jpg
 
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 "fucking" 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.

--- none of which is defined anywhere, because it can't be. "I know it when I see it" doesn't work, never did.

Again, the ONLY way the FCC addresses this at all is if it receives complaints from the public. That means some part of the public is questioning whether Broadcast Entity X deserves a license (from us -- We the People own the airwaves). It does not monitor what anybody's doing (except maybe for technical compliance). It reacts to the public's wishes. It's how the system works.

And again, this applies only to broadcast licenses.


You have to have a set of basic standards, which they do, in order for the public to complain.
The FCC then has the ability to enforce them how they wish.

No, you don't. You can complain on any basis you like. I'm mulling over one right now -- a radio station in Tennessee is crowding out my baseball station on the same frequency. But unlike style content, that's actually quantifiable.

Later we shall delve deeply into a case history where FCC indicated it would pull a station's license for such "obscenity" (in this case involving incest). But later, I've gotta get some work done.


As promised -- for illustration of how the system works...

Back in 1975 out of the social upheavals of the '60s there was a radio show called "The Vegetable Report". This had nothing to do with farming or food, just a whimsical random name. It was an open-ended call-in show on a student-run station at the University of Pennsylvania (which owned the license).

One day in this freewheeling talk-about-anything phone-in format while some female caller was apparently talking about her son (I'm not sure how old) the topic turned to sex as the on-air host suggested she should fellate him. I don't remember the exact wording but it took the form of a joke in which both participated. Some listener (or listeners) complained to the FCC, which found the complaint to have merit, and found an ongoing pattern of similar earthy tones in past programming. After its investigation the FCC concluded that when WXPN's broadcast license expired, it would not be renewed. It would serve out its remaining term and then lights out.

(Broadcast station licenses run for a finite term, currently 8 years; at the time I think it was 5 years, after which each station has to apply for a renewal. Usually such renewal is nothing more than a formality -- only in the case of egregious abuse is renewal denied)​

The FCC in this case cited not "obscenity" which is always a dicey subjective area, but the licensee's failure to properly supervise its asset. Basically it just threw money at a studio/transmitter and let the student body run it as a student activity. It said basically, "you can't control your operation, we'll take it back". This was all in reaction to listener complaints -- Public Participation The First.

When the listening public got wind of the FCC decision a community group was organized, filed a kind of Friend-of-the-Court brief and petitioned the FCC to reconsider, as the station's programming overall was decidedly valuable as a cultural resource, an oasis on the dial supplying what no one else would. Public Participation The Second.

The two sides, the licensee and the FCC came together and negotiated a settlement whereby the license would be renewed after all, provided the licensee (Penn) set up a structure of professionals to manage the station and keep it within the confines of public standards of taste. This they did, and the station renewed. and thrived to become a shining star in its class without anarchy in the programming department. The complaining listeners got their complaints addressed, the community kept its cultural resource, the University kept its license, everybody lived happily ever after.

That's how the process works.
 
For all you supporters of “New Neutrality” - I toldya so!


FCC Commissioner: Feds May Come for Drudge


However, Pai (a Republican FCC Commissioner) said it was only the beginning. In the future, he said, “I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content… What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself.


When will you leftists learn that allow government to open the door just a little bit is an invitation for them to slam it open wide? I don't care what your excuses are, just because they claim it's to treat internet providers like public utilities doesn't mean it won't spread further.


Read the article @ Prison Planet.com FCC Commissioner Feds May Come for Drudge



Anytime you let the government control something you can expect this kind of shit.
That liberals dont understand this is the real shocker.
Or maybe they do.....


I really agree with you both that Big Government has no place in controlling who you choose to marry or on your reproductive decisions.

:rolleyes:

And that has what to do with censorship?
Nothing, looney tunes is just being the idiot he is.
 
For all you supporters of “New Neutrality” - I toldya so!


FCC Commissioner: Feds May Come for Drudge


However, Pai (a Republican FCC Commissioner) said it was only the beginning. In the future, he said, “I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content… What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself.


When will you leftists learn that allow government to open the door just a little bit is an invitation for them to slam it open wide? I don't care what your excuses are, just because they claim it's to treat internet providers like public utilities doesn't mean it won't spread further.


Read the article @ Prison Planet.com FCC Commissioner Feds May Come for Drudge

Not a bit surprising.
 
Fed Censorship is Coming

Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?

:popcorn:
They attempted to fine CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".

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.

You asked, "When has the FCC ever done that?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Fairness Doctrine.
 
Fed Censorship is Coming

Yeah? When has the FCC ever done that?

:popcorn:
They attempted to fine CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".

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.

You asked, "When has the FCC ever done that?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Fairness Doctrine.


Again, that isn't "control on political communication".

The challenge I've put out, here, elsewhere on this site, and on other boards before here, has been to document any case -- even one -- where the Fairness Doctrine squelched anybody anywhere. No one has ever met that challenge. But I don't take risky bets -- I already know there are no such cases.
 
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