Fuck the FCC

[melon]

FCC Seeks to Limit F-Word on U.S. Airwaves

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has proposed barring the F-word from most radio and broadcast television, regardless of the context, sources close to the issue said on Tuesday.

The proposal would overturn an October FCC staff decision that ruled the word was not indecent when U2 rocker Bono used it while accepting an award during the 2003 live broadcast of the "Golden Globe Awards" on the NBC television network.

To succeed, Powell will have to garner at least two other votes for the proposal and the four other FCC commissioners are now considering the issue, the sources said.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said in a statement he could not comment on specifics "but I've been pushing for strong action against indecency since I got here."

[That's because you want to cover up the fact that you are useless otherwise.]

"I'll know this commission is serious when it starts assessing meaningful fines and having truly filthy broadcasts lead to license revocation hearings," he said.

The October decision sparked outrage among some advocacy groups who complained that millions of children were watching the broadcast. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing on the broadcast indecency for next week.

Federal law bars the airing of obscene speech and limits the time for broadcasting indecent material that contains sexual or excretory references in a patently offensive manner.

The agency defines as indecent speech that depicts or describes sexual organs or activities, and a broadcast must be "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium."

The FCC staff had determined that Bono used as an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation and while it may have been crude and offensive, it "did not describe sexual or excretory organs or activities."

It was unclear whether the stations that aired the awards show would be fined, though one source said a majority of commissioners might want to penalize the broadcasters.

A spokeswoman for NBC, which is owned by General Electric Co. , said the network had no immediate comment.

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Silly me. Using the word "fuck" on television, albeit on a live television broadcast, is far more damaging to Christian fundamentalists...err...."children" than too many ads or media ownership consolidation, the latter of which the FCC has taken a very repugnant stance on.

It's no wonder that all the good shows on TV these days are on premium cable (HBO, Showtime, etc.), because they don't have to deal with ads or content regulation fitting for a Puritan alternate universe. All the creativity in television has been killed, and I blame it on the fucking FCC.

Fuck...fuck....fuck....

Melon

 

[kobayashi]

i dont know if we can blame it all on the regulator.
certainly most of it though.
and not just content regulations. they have performed pretty poorly in many respects.

 

[verte76]

I agree--fuck the FCC!! What with all the crud going on in the world they think one word is a threat?? That notion should have gone to the grave with Queen Victoria.
Idiots.

 

[Elvis]

Welcome to America... err... the United Prudent States of America.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Agreed.

It's just a word. It only offends people if they let it offend them.

And what in the world do people think remote controls were invented for?

Sorry, but out of all the things in this world that could offend me, the "f" word is far from being one of them.

Angela

 

[joyfulgirl]

pirate radio stations

 

[nbcrusader]

It's just a word. It only offends people if they let it offend them.

Would you apply this standard to the "N" word?




I am surprised and disappointed by Powell's request. There are more pressing issues for the FCC to address than Bono's quote.

 

[melon]

I am surprised and disappointed by Powell's request. There are more pressing issues for the FCC to address than Bono's quote.

I'm not surprised and continually disappointed.

Melon

 

[BVS]

Would you apply this standard to the "N" word?

Yet that word's allowed by the FCC.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Yet that word's allowed by the FCC.

Is it? I didn't know that.

And nbcrusader, yeah, I actually would. First off, wherever that word's used, the context it's used it should be looked at. Second, while I certainly do understand the negative connotations surrounding it, and while I personally do not feel comfortable using the word...well...expressing yourself through words should never be illegal in this country, no matter how harsh those words may be (besides, the only way anyone can confront hatred and words associated with such hatred is head on, we can't sweep them under the rug and act like they don't exist-by letting people say those words, those who use them with hatred show their true idiocy, and hopefully that will make people realize how stupid people who talk like that sound, and they will refuse to associate themselves with such stupidity as a result).

. That's just how I personally feel.

Angela

 

[BVS]

I used to DJ for a college radio station and here's the list of words we weren't allowed to say on air. Now I know some have changed, you used to not be able to say g#ddamn but it seems many seem to be getting away with this these days.

You can't say:

-Shit, but you can say turd or any other slang

-Piss, yet any other word for urinating is fine. Oh and you can say it if your British and you're talking about being drunk.

-Fuck

-Cocksucker or Cock, unless you're referring to a rooster

-Cunt

-Motherfucker

-Tits, yet any other slang for breasts is fine

Now you can say dick if you are reffering to a person being a dick, but if you're referring to male anatomy then you'll get bleeped. Same with pussy.

These are the rules I remember. It's been a couple of years so some may have changed.

 

[bammo2]

when I was studying radio at university about 4 years ago, we were taught that there is only 1 word that is actually banned on UK radio - Cunt. Other swear words are not banned but are not generally used because people would complain. If the use of the word is deemed offensive then they can have the complaint upheld by the broadcast complaints commision, so there can be repurcussions. But it's only cunt that you're actually not allowed to say.

bit of a wierd set up if you ask me. I mean, the other words might as well be banned if you can get in trouble for saying them anyway.....??

Oh, and here in britain you can say pretty much what you want on telly after the watershed (9pm)

here's a quote from a Guardian article:

"Further verification that fuck is, well, fucked, comes from Andrea Wills, the BBC's chief advisor on editorial policy. "In research, 50% or more people said the words that should never be broadcast are cunt, motherfucker, ******, Paki and spastic. Young women also don't like whore, slag and twat. But fuck wasn't on the list."

"In the current climate, racial language is very, very sensitive and one has to tread carefully," says Prash Naik of Channel 4's legal and compliance department. "But ****** and Paki are not prohibited pre-9pm. If they are used in a social documentary or a socially responsible drama such as Brookside, with an established reputation for tackling difficult subjects, it can then be justified as highlighting the issue of racial discrimination."

Swearing is, it would seem, at a peculiar crossroads. Fuck is thoroughly denatured. Crap, bastard, bugger, sod, shit, bullshit and tosser (although strangely not wanker) are used on daytime television and radio. Religious expletives, such as damn, hell and blimey, once as powerful as fuck, are not even thought of as vaguely impolite. But Ayto is confident that we will survive the suburbanisation of fuck. "I don't think there's any danger of running out of swear words. We will make them up or regard different things as being more shocking and offensive. There will always be a need to strike a blow at convention by using disapproved words."

There will always be divisions, however, over what is disapproved. As one middle-class west London mother said when I mentioned researching this article: "I'd rather my children said fuck than toilet."

 

[U2Kitten]

I can't believe they're thinking about changing their original comment on Bono! They're making way too big a deal out of this.

 

[Soul Always]

On one hand they're making too big a deal out of this. On the other, they are not. I hate how celebrities are protected in our society. Front and center, I like Bono and I feel for him.

 

[BVS]

On the other, they are not. I hate how celebrities are protected in our society. Front and center, I like Bono and I feel for him.

What does this have to do with protecting celebrities. This has to do with the FCC's inconsistincies. This isn't hurting Bono, he won't be fined(they fine the networks), he's not going to lose fans over this and if he does I'm sure he's not losing sleep over "fans" like that. If anything this keeps his name in print during a time when he's not doing much publicly. It's a word, nothing more, nothing less. Words only become more than a word when they're grouped with other words.

 

[sue4u2]

Even if I don't want this word on primetime, it really comes down to having seen this before. It's the build him up, i.e. the incredible work Bono's doing for Africa, then focus on a negative, so tear him down, for a word he said in a context that means nothing. So it goes, news ratings, jealousy and politics in a way to try to make him look bad so it doesn't look so bad when Bush back's out of a promise or goes back on his word. Expect more because Bush cannot and will not be overshowed by a Rock Star. Why else would Bush insinuate himself into a ceremony he wasn't even invited too. Next thing you know "fucking brilliant" will be a threat to national security.

 

[BVS]

Even if I don't want this word on primetime, it really comes down to having seen this before. It's the build him up, i.e. the incredible work Bono's doing for Africa, then focus on a negative, so tear him down, for a word he said in a context that means nothing. So it goes, news ratings, jealousy and politics in a way to try to make him look bad so it doesn't look so bad when Bush back's out of a promise or goes back on his word. Expect more because Bush cannot and will not be overshowed by a Rock Star. Why else would Bush insinuate himself into a ceremony he wasn't even invited too. Next thing you know "fucking brilliant" will be a threat to national security.

I'm not sure how Bush got brought into this but it reminds of the speech where his Dad brought up U2 calling him at the White House.

 

[U2LipstickBoy]

FCC should sue NBC heavy

The FCC should sue NBC heavy for letting NBC air such an offensive word during prime-time programming. NBC knows what the rules are, NBC can easily afford devices or a person to hold their finger on a button during live programming, but they failed to. Bono should not be brought into this story, Bono has every right to stand on a stage and say whatever words he wants, but NBC does not have the right to broadcast those words over the airwaves, and the FCC should send a clear signal to NBC.

The FCC has levied million-dollar fines against Howard Stern for words he has used on radio, and Stern and his bosses have always come up and given money to the FCC to settle these fines.

It's good to see that the FCC is treating all networks the same, and making them all play by the same rules. The FCC has being doing a great job lately, there are now more radio and television stations than ever before. With the advent of satellite television, satellite radio, premium cable TV packages, there are now more entertainment sources than ever before.

The FCC is going in the right direction, they're upholding decency in broadcasting and at the same time they're allowing more radio stations and TV stations on the air, the selection for television and radio choice has never been greater.

 

[ABEL]

maybe someone from the fcc should read this thread

http://forum.interference.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38351

 

[ABEL]

btw, lipstickboy, are you the same lipstickboy who used to go into u2 chat?

 

[BVS]

Was he as delightful as he is in here?

 

[U2LipstickBoy]

That's me

That's me from the AOL-U2 chatroom

 

[ABEL]

oh, i never went to the aol u2 chatroom, i mean here at interference?

 

[U2LipstickBoy]

no

no, my mother doesn't let me chat in the interference room

 

[Blacksword]

You know personally I find 'goddamn" and "Jesus" used as expletives more offensive than "fuck". "Fuck" is practically a meaningless word these days given all its applications where as "Jesus" means something rather specific. Casue seriously no one would say "Muhammad" or "Vishnu". Now I'm not going to have an anurism if I hear ti but it is fairly annoying (It really got under my skin back when I saw Gladiator in theatres. This woman behind me would yell it out every time something violent happened on screen. Uh might have expected some violence in a movie called Gladiator. And learn another expletive..). The only time "fuck' bothers me is with people who use it every other word and seem to have no other adjectives verbs or adverbs.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i guess i'll be the lone person who believes that the word Fuck has no business being on television... do i blame bono? not at all... it was a reaction at a live event. you can't blame him... you can blame the dump man who let it through, but ya can't blame the person who said it.

over the holidays, one of my little cousins called his mother "penis breath." the kid's like 4 years old. now should we censor things? absolutely not... it's the responsibility of the parents to not let their young kids say such things. but it's not about censorship to me... it's about respect. keep the curses on the premium cable networks and off of basic cable. who gives a fuck wink about the occasional, accidental slip... but in no way should we start opening up the airwaves to whatever they want to put on it.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Honestly, I don't believe the f word belongs on TV either

Last week I was watching The View (yes, I'm ashamed to admit I watched it for about 15 min), and Barbara Walters was discussing a news story about..let's see, how to word this..men getting a certain area waxed for a particular sexual reason.

She was pretty graphic about it. Why is that allowed on daytime? Not to mention soaps..I've heard the word bastard used on those, and other curse words.

 

[verte76]

I prefer *not* to hear this sort of stuff on TV, but.........I was just watching TV and an unmarried couple was duking it out on some talk show, a paternity dispute, and every other word was bleeped out........disgusting.....generally TV programming is low quality stuff that needs "shock value" to hang in there, or so the big shots think. Any attempt to assign blame in any one place isn't right. While I'm not fond of this trend it makes me mad as hell that they are picking on Bono. If they'd listen to a few of the other things he says the world would be a better place.
Idiots. TV programming is the problem.