Word: fcc
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Further, Ginsberg states that '[a]ny attack on indecent material is no infringement of the First Amendment." This is incorrect. Indecency, as defined by the FCC (which will enforce the Communications Decency Act), does not lack the protection of the First Amendment; indecency is distinct from obscenity...
...trickiest problem of all is, Who will rate the shows, and how they will be rated? The telecommunications bill encourages the networks to devise their own rating system; if they haven't done so in a year, the fcc is empowered to set up a panel for creating one. One possible system is currently being tested in Canada. Programs are given a rating of from 0 to 5 in each of three categories: violence, sex and profanity. By setting their V-chip dial to numbers of their choice, parents can block out all shows with higher than that level...
Some V-chip critics see the centralized rating concept as too rigid. They support instead one of several devices currently in development that enable parents to make their own choices of which shows to block out. fcc chairman Reed Hundt, a V-chip booster, contends that it will be only "the first of a slew of products. I predict remote-control devices with selection programs. There will be a variety of ways to receive...
...their part, object that a ratings system mandated by the government threatens their free-speech rights. "A centralized rating system that is subject to review and approval by the government is totally inconsistent with the traditions of this country," says NBC general counsel Richard Cotton. "This legislation turns the fcc into Big Brother." Former CBS Broadcast Group president Howard Stringer argues, "The V chip is the thin end of a wedge. If you start putting chips in the television set to exclude things, it becomes an all-purpose hidden censor...
...what turns out to be objectionable programming and pay the penalties later. The Independent Television Commission, one of various monitoring groups in Britain, recently fined MTV Europe $90,000, in part for running explicit sex-themed talk shows in the morning and early evening. In France a government-operated FCC equivalent known as the CSA fined two French networks a total of $2 million in 1989 for airing violent movies during prime-time hours...