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Free Expression

Comments on Broadcast Indecency Policy

CDT joins TechFreedom, Public Knowledge, and EFF in urging the FCC to proceed with caution as it reviews its broadcast indecency policy. The media landscape has changed since George Carlin’s “7 Dirty Words” monologue led the Supreme Court in 1978 to uphold FCC censorship of broadcast content. Over-the-air TV and radio are no longer “uniquely pervasive” media that are “uniquely accessible to children” — with a variety of content platforms and the availability of fine-grained parental content controls, the legal foundation for singling out broadcast for censorship has utterly crumbled.