$#*! is an indecent word

[Alyeska]

According to the PTC.

Ars Technica

Excerpt:

"CBS intentionally chose to insert an expletive into the actual name of a show, and, despite its claim that the word will be bleeped, it is just CBS' latest demonstration of its contempt for families and the public," declared PTC President Tim Winter. "There are an infinite number of alternatives that CBS could have chosen but its desire to shock and offend is crystal clear in this decision."

The logic is stunningly stupid. A representation in place of a swear word becomes a swear word? By that logic the absence of a swear word is a swear word.

Go ____ yourself

There is no actual swear word, but the statement is clear. But to take things as far as what PTC is advocating, the absence of a swearing is still swearing so long as the implication can exist. This means that even bleeped out language is still a FCC violation by PTC rules. I am hopeful that the FCC and Federal courts see through this charade of a suit. Its clear as day that PTC is trying to force its morality onto everyone else.

[Oscar Wilde]

Wait, does the PTC have any actual sway?

[Instant Sunrise]

Wait, does the PTC have any actual sway?

In 2003 99.8% of all FCC complaints were from the PTC.

So they don't directly have any sway, but they can whip up bad press for any show that doesn't meet their puritanical ideals and flood networks or the FCC with complaints. In one case, getting the FCC to levy a huge fine for an episode of NYPD Blue five years after it aired.

[Flagg]

I'd still like to know how the FCC can censor language.

[phongn]

I'd still like to know how the FCC can censor language.

Because the FCC has regulatory power over radio transmissions in the US and thus is in charge of enforcing 18 USC 1464?

[Alphawolf55]

I think he means more how can it be legal when presented along with the first amendment.

[Zed]

Personally, I've always found the bleeping out of swear words or its replacement by an alternative swear ("frak!") to be hypocritical. Whether represented by a bleep or by an actual word, the intent and effect remains the same - the only difference is that bleeps are more annoying than actual words. I'm not that hostile to the removal of "$#*"or bleeps from television vocabulary - it'd only be consistent to remove those as well. On the other hand, I'd be even more supportive of an attempt to simply negate the ban on swear words.

[Knife]

Personally, I've always found the bleeping out of swear words or its replacement by an alternative swear ("frak!") to be hypocritical. Whether represented by a bleep or by an actual word, the intent and effect remains the same - the only difference is that bleeps are more annoying than actual words. I'm not that hostile to the removal of "$#*"or bleeps from television vocabulary - it'd only be consistent to remove those as well. On the other hand, I'd be even more supportive of an attempt to simply negate the ban on swear words.

Indeed, which goes straight to the real point; what is offensive about those words? Is it the sound of them, which would then make 'stand in's' viable, or the intent behind the words which would make stand in's hypocrisy.

[Flagg]

I think he means more how can it be legal when presented along with the first amendment.

Basically. The FCC was originated to designate call letters and frequencies not to decide how many times you can say titty in an hour. Moreover they are the public airwaves. If I can tell someone she has a rotten fishmarket for a cunt outside Starks GF's house, I can damn well say it on Lost.

[phongn]

I think he means more how can it be legal when presented along with the first amendment.

Basically. The FCC was originated to designate call letters and frequencies not to decide how many times you can say titty in an hour. Moreover they are the public airwaves. If I can tell someone she has a rotten fishmarket for a cunt outside Starks GF's house, I can damn well say it on Lost.

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 US 726 goes into detail the common-law basis for government censorship of public airwaves. Furthermore, how do you know you have the right to yell that into someone's private property?

[wautd]

Wow... I had to double check if this was an Onion article or not. Twice. Their asses must be so tight they're cracking nuts.

[Molyneux]

I think he means more how can it be legal when presented along with the first amendment.

Basically. The FCC was originated to designate call letters and frequencies not to decide how many times you can say titty in an hour. Moreover they are the public airwaves. If I can tell someone she has a rotten fishmarket for a cunt outside Starks GF's house, I can damn well say it on Lost.

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 US 726 goes into detail the common-law basis for government censorship of public airwaves. Furthermore, how do you know you have the right to yell that into someone's private property?

I'm unsure of the laws regarding exercise of free speech on private property, but as far as I know the street and sidewalk are still public property.

This looks like a fairly relevant excerpt from the decision - looks like it refrains from deciding the constitutional issue, unless I'm misreading it.

Pacifica makes two constitutional attacks on the Commission's order. First, it argues that the Commission's construction of the statutory language broadly encompasses so much constitutionally protected speech that reversal is required even if Pacifica's broadcast of the "Filthy Words" monologue is not itself protected by the First Amendment. Second, Pacifica argues that inasmuch as the recording is not obscene, the Constitution forbids any abridgment of the right to broadcast it on the radio.

A

The first argument fails because our review is limited to the question whether the Commission has the authority to proscribe this particular broadcast. As the Commission itself emphasized, its order was "issued in a specific factual context." 59 F. C. C. 2d, at 893. That approach is appropriate for courts as well as the Commission when regulation of indecency is at stake, for indecency is largely a function of context— it cannot be adequately judged in the abstract.

On balance, I'm still going to hold the opinion that the FCC is and has been greatly overreaching its constitutional boundaries, and that any court that decides otherwise can suck my fat cock, the queep-gobbling cumbucket putzes.

[Punarbhava]

Censorship sucks, but I doubt it's going away anytime soon.

This is the first I've heard of this show though, and I'm very excited. I love the shitmydadsays twitter page. It's the only thing I think I'll ever bother to check out on that site. I might actually turn my tv on to check this out.

[CmdrWilkens]

Basically. The FCC was originated to designate call letters and frequencies not to decide how many times you can say titty in an hour. Moreover they are the public airwaves. If I can tell someone she has a rotten fishmarket for a cunt outside Starks GF's house, I can damn well say it on Lost.

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 US 726 goes into detail the common-law basis for government censorship of public airwaves. Furthermore, how do you know you have the right to yell that into someone's private property?

I'm unsure of the laws regarding exercise of free speech on private property, but as far as I know the street and sidewalk are still public property.

They are public property but by using them to intrude upon a neighbor's quiet enjoyment of their private property you have infringed upon their rights (which in turn allows the government to declare your speech unlawful). Leaving aside that such speech could be construed as assault in some context (and can thus be regulated) you also have the fact that the sidewalk and street are in fact public right of ways which places them in a slightly different context in that the aforementioned rights of quiet enjoyment extend to the right of way needed to access private property.

In other words you CAN (in the sense that nobody can physically restrain you) go shout like Flagg wants to BUT you can be held both liable, in civil action, and in violation of the law for that action depending upon the context and the reasonableness of the speech as well as any laws regarding indecent speech particularly ... wait for it ... Disturbing the Peace, which has been a misdemeanor infraction for a damn long time.

As a for example on just the no cussing grounds The Commonwealth of Virginia (18.2-416) has a specific provision regarding cussing (though it has been limited under Mercer v Winston to the "fighting words" doctrine).

[Kanastrous]

What's sad (and funny) is that these PTC types could satisfy their obvious self-righteous power-lust (LET'S MAKE A MAJOR NETWORK AND ITS MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR PARENT DO *OUR* BIDDING!) by...

...just turning off their fucking tv's, or turning them to a different channel, and getting like-minded people who agree with their cause (an obvious silent majority just waiting patiently for PTC or someone like them to come charging to the reasue and lead us to goodness, justice, and implied-profanity-free programming) to do the same.

Are any of us *really* dumb enough to believe that, if faced with noticeably declining viewership over an implied profanity (actually, is "shit" really considered 'profane?' - where I grew up it's an agricultural term used to describe what comes outta that rear ends of livestock...) any and every network wouldn't pull the show or title, to maintain their competitiveness with advertisers?

I guess we should be grateful that these useless idjit bozos don't seem to understand how anything works, while they try to interfere with it.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Ok, I read banned books, sometimes just for the fact that they are banned, (sometimes), however in this thread my brain keeps trying to figure out what the fuck PTC stands for. Of course instead of judging the offesnsiveness of something by the most prudish assholes most desperatly in need of a good fucking, we should judge something say by what the median tolerance is now, purhaps. (Of course with the internet generation, we would have programs with cluster f-bombs, but hell, that would probably involve steven botchko)

[Kanastrous]

Well, that's the whole 'community standards' principle. But of course the PTC guys want to apply the standards they'd like to see for their community, to everybody's.

[General Mung Beans]

Even Jack Chick feels free to use $#*! in place of a swear word. This is pure stupidity.