Honestly...don't these guys have something better to do?

FCC is investigating NBC's telecast of the Golden Globes after 18 of the 14.6 million total viewers called to complain about a middle finger that wasn't blurred. That's .000001 percent of viewers for those keeping score at home.

Seriously...do people just sit at home with the phone in their lap looking for stuff to be offended by and report?

Get a life!

OMG a nipple! OMG a finger! OMG he said...

Oh no, a middle finger, everyone run!

* Darren Aronofsky,
* Golden Globes,
* Mickey Rourke

Darren Aronofsky flipping of Mickey Rourke

After receiving 18 complaints from viewers, the FCC is investigating NBC's telecast of the Golden Globes for possible violations of indecency rules . . . because why wouldn't you waste taxpayer dollars investigating complaints by 18 of the 14.6 million people that watched the show? We can't just forget about that .000001 percent of viewers. The networks must adapt their programming to them. It's what our Founding Fathers fought for. From the Los Angeles Times:

Toward the end of the program, director Darren Aronofsky was caught on camera jokingly making an obscene gesture -- "flipping the bird," as it's commonly called -- at actor Mickey Rourke, who was onstage accepting an acting award for Aronofsky's film "The Wrestler." Rourke and other attendees also salted their speeches with occasional off-color language, some of which was bleeped by NBC censors.

Now the FCC, which regulates decency issues on the broadcast networks, has stepped into the fray. "We received 18 complaints about the Golden Globes telecast," FCC spokeswoman Edie Herman wrote in an e-mail to The Times, "and the commission is reviewing the matter." (Source)

If you're one of the 17* people that called the FCC to complain about a middle finger, do us all a favor and please kill yourself now. Or at least rip out your reproductive organs and set them on fire.

This is an Outrage

yes it is

You know, I am occasionally sickened when I happen to see Dancing with the Stars or American Idol when channel surfing.

Perhaps I should start phoning into the FCC to complain about the obscene nature of these programs.

Oh, by the way, the FCC changed an administrative policy in the last few years. Instead of fining the network for broadcasts it finds obscene it instead fines each affiliate that aired that broadcast as well.

This issue has ended up in the SCOTUS in FCC v. Fox Television Stations.

Here's a case where I am supporting FOX. I hope the court sides with them.

For those interested in this issue this site, the SCOTUSBLOG has some good information on the case.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/argument-preview-fcc-v-fox-tv-stations/

An exert from the site:

Nearly 30 years ago, in July 1978, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution allowed the government to prohibit the broadcast, on radio and TV, of vulgar words that were indecent, though not obscene. That was the ruling in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation. Justice John Paul Stevens, the author of the main opinion in Pacifica, is the only member of the Court still serving. The Commission is back again, seeking to enforce a more restrictive policy on broadcasts of indecency. In the case of FCC v. Fox Television Stations, et al. (07-582), the Court will be reviewing FCC’s claim that it has the power to punish a station for even the single use of a vulgar word - specifically, two four-letter words, one a sexual epithet, the other a bit of barnyard or toilet slang.
Background

Since the Radio Act of 1927 was passed, federal law has provided that “No person within the jurisdiction of the United States shall utter any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication” - a provision since extended to television. The FCC, however, did not begin to spell out a policy on what the word “indecent” meant until 1975. It did so then in response to a complaint from a father who had heard on a New York radio station owned by Pacifica a monologue by satirist George Carlin, titled “Filthy Words.” The man heard the expletive-filled broadcast at 2 in the afternoon, while driving with his young son in the car. The Commission did not then punish Pacifica, but said it was putting the complaint in its files and might take action if it got more complaints about indecent broadcasts. Pacifica took the FCC to court, and the D.C. Circuit Court struck down the Commission’s “declaratory order,” treating it as a kind of censorship forbidden either by the Radio Act or by the Constitution’s First Amendment. After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the FCC and against Pacifica, in a decision that notably remarked that of all forms of communication, broadcasting had “the most limited First Amendment protection.”

For years thereafter, the Commission followed a policy of acting against broadcasters only if a broadcaster used indecent language in a sustained or repeated way. Congress specified that the FCC could only apply the indecency ban to radio and TV broadcasts aired between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. - times when children might well be listening or watching.

The post-Pacifica policy stood until March 2004, when the agency changed its mind. Thereafter, it said, even a single use of “the F-Word” on the air would be treated as illegal. The FCC also made it clear that, among other single banned words, a four-letter word meaning excrement and some variations of the word “bull–” are also banned. It makes exceptions, such as for news broadcasts or other situations in which the context suggests the words are not being used to convey vulgar meaning. The agency changed its approach after getting complaints about two broadcasts on Fox television of the Billboard Music Awards - the show in 2002 when singer-actress Cher used “the F-Word,” and the show in 2003 when actress Nicole Richie used variations of that word and used the four-letter excrement word - and a broadcast on NBC-TV in 2003 of the Golden Globe Awards, when rock singer Bono used a variation of “the F-Word.” It was actually the Bono comment that led the FCC, in March of 2004, to announce its policy shift so that it would no longer tolerate single uses of vulgar words on the air. It did not punish Bono, however, because it said it had previously allowed “isolated or fleeting’ used of expletives during broadcasts.

But, in reaction to the complaints about Cher and Nicole Richie and the Billboard programs, the FCC in February 2006 issued what it called an “omnibus order”, stressing the ban on single usage violations. Again, though, it imposed no sanctions, because it concluded that broadcast licensees lacked adequate notice of its new policy before the broadcasts. Fox TV, joined by other broadcasters, complained to the Second Circuit Court about the new policy, but that Court did not rule initially, because the FCC recalled the case to respond more explicitly to the broadcasters’ complaints. It modified its order somewhat, but reaffirmed the ban on single expletives. The case then returned to the Second Circuit, which struck down the new policy as arbitrary and capricious under federal communications law. It did not rule, however, on the broadcasters’ constitutional challenges under the First Amendment. But it did comment that it doubted that the FCC policy could survive scrutiny under that Amendment. It said, though, that it would allow the FCC a chance to provide a “reasonable explanation” for its change of mind.

"Seriously...do people just sit at home with the phone in their lap looking for stuff to be offended by and report? Get a life!"

I suppose the same statement could be made about people who complain on forums about other people complaining.

ACLU tactics work both ways.

is a middle finger considered obscene? I never knew that

GOOD ONE

I dare you to look at the cases the ACLU has taken on.

They have represented many right wing causes and organizations.

Some people are simply to blinded by their own preconceived notions to look beyond the end of their own fingers.

But...I can see why the rule of law and the equal application of law would upset some here.