With indecency complaints soaring, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) is launching a new site to educate the public about laws
governing the public airing of obscene, indecent and profane material.
The FCC receives hundreds of thousands of complaints each year alleging
violation of the restrictions on obscene, indecent, or profane programming.
Last year, the FCC fielded more than a million complaints from the public
over questionable material broadcast over television and radio.
During the first six months of this year, more than 160,000 complaints hit
the FCC, which has administrative responsibility for enforcing the law that
governs these types of broadcasts.
The new FCC site explains how to file
a complaint and what happens to the complaint once the commission receives
it.
The site also answers frequently asked questions on a wide range of
topics ranging from how a consumer can determine the status of a complaint
he or she filed to what makes material obscene, indecent or profane.
The FCC carefully explains that the First Amendment does not protect obscene
speech and that public broadcasters are prohibited from airing obscene
programming at any time. The rub, of course, is defining obscene speech.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, obscene material meets the following criteria: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community
standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient
interest (i.e. material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts); (2)
the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual
conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken
as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific
value.
The Supreme Court has indicated that this test is designed to cover
hard-core pornography.
Indecent material, on the other hand, is sexual or excretory material that
does not rise to the level of obscenity. For this reason, the courts have
held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot
be banned entirely.
Indecent material may, however, be restricted to avoid its broadcast during
times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the
audience. The FCC has determined, with the approval of the courts, that
there is a reasonable risk that children will be in the audience from 6 a.m.
to 10 p.m.
The FCC prohibits station licensees from broadcasting indecent material
during that time period.
The FCC explains that “profane language,” a frequent source of FCC
complaints, includes those words that are “so highly offensive that their
mere utterance in the context presented may, in legal terms, amount to a
nuisance.”
The FCC warns broadcasters that, depending on the context, it considers the
“F-word” and those words (or variants thereof) that are as highly offensive
as the “F-word” to be “profane language” that cannot be broadcast between 6
a.m. and 10 p.m.
The site explains how to file a complaint and what happens to the complaint
once the FCC receives it.
