Jacob Sullum on the FCC's Increasingly Incomprehensible Ban on Broadcast Indecency
Three decades ago, in FCC v. Pacifica, the Supreme Court upheld content-based regulation of broadcasting on the grounds that the medium was "uniquely pervasive" and "uniquely accessible to children." In January the Court heard a case that gives it an opportunity to renounce this obsolete doctrine once and for all. Senior Editor Jacob Sullum says such a ruling is long overdue, since Pacifica has allowed arbitrary censorship based on assumptions that were always questionable and are now technologically obsolete.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?