Indecency Complaints Increase at FCC

[mongo]

Indecency Complaints Increase at FCC
By: Wade Garrett
Posted: 9:00 am PST 11-10-2005

<snip is from middle of article>

Although the number of complaints is up, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank backed by media companies, claims that the commission's figures give a false impression.

"The FCC now measures indecency complaints differently than all other types of complaints," Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the outfit, told Reuters "In so doing, it permits a process whereby indecency complaints appear to be artificially inflated relative to other types of complaints."

Thierer claims that accounting changes at the FCC are giving too much weight to campaigns like those run by PTC.

On July 1, 2003, the agency began tallying each computer-generated complaint sent to the FCC by any advocacy group as an individual complaint, rather than as a single complaint as it had done previously. Then early in 2004 the FCC also began counting each complaint even if it was sent by the same person a number of times, Reuters reported. The changes grossly overstate the number of people who might actually have concerns about the content of broadcast programming.

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[TomClash]

1. Indecency

is every Faux News broadcast.

[marbuc]

2. There should be some middle ground

Counting computer generated complaints as one is not exactly accurate, but nor is counting each individually. There should be a way to acknowledge how many people respond to these campaigns, while considering these complaints should not carry the same weight as one from an individual.

When I interned on "The Hill," we separated the letters and cards generated by issue organizations from those that appeared to be written by individual constituents. Support and opposition was gauged with a very unscientific system, but one nonetheless weighted toward the latter.

[mongo]

3. And the thing about complaints from PTC

is that PTC sends out e-mails to their members urging them to complain (with a link to a handy web-form to make the complaint).

So hundreds if not thousands of people make these complaints about a show they never saw, based on what the PTC tells them.