Does the United States have a SARFT?

3. During the latter part of the night of the wireless public channel and all the time periods of the cable channel, there is no requirement for content. In general, some of the dirty words in these periods will not be beep, but they will not appear too inconvenient.

In practice, each major television network and FCC representatives form a review committee to jointly formulate basic grading standards for television programs and determine which words in the program are silenced.

In terms of movies , the MPAA is a purely industry association organization that is responsible for grading movie content.

In the United States, the media industry has implemented a commercialized system, and the vulgarization of television programs has been rather serious. How to do without affecting the development of the film and television entertainment industry, but also to prevent the phenomenon of increasing vulgarization of the program from increasing, becomes an important responsibility and problem of the FCC. The United States has less restrictions on television content, but vulgar programs are also subject to strict controls. According to Article 1464 of the United States Federal Act, the FCC has the authority to regulate radio broadcast television operators to broadcast "Obscene, Profane Indecent" programs. In the United States, "vulgarized programs" refer to those TV programs that have not yet reached the level of obscene pornography, but are clearly stigmatized, disrespectful, swear words, or openly offend the basic moral standards of society. Like Janet Jackson's “Breast Expo” and the 20th MTV Video Music Awards in the United States, Britney and Madonna sang and kissed on the content. From the scope of view, those "wandering, disrespectful and vulgar" programs belong to the category of vulgar programs that we refer to.

The United States is the first country in the world to regulate the content of television programs and has formed a relatively complete system of systems. From the perspective of power level, it can be divided into five levels: constitutional basis, legal regulations, policy system, industry norms, and citizen supervision. The United States Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but it does not protect vulgar content. This has become the basis for the United States to control low-level TV programs. U.S. law clearly states that any blasphemous, vulgar, disrespectful, or disrespectful language may not be broadcast on radio and television. However, this basis is not solid enough. Because the protection of freedom of speech is clearly stipulated by the Constitution, and the protection of vulgar content is not just based on inferences, the legal rigidity is obviously inferior to the former. Therefore, the control of vulgar programs is an important responsibility of the FCC, but it is also the most difficult task to cope with. The FCC must ensure that it does not violate the provisions of the First Amendment to the Constitution and Article 326 of the Federal Communications Law when exercising this right, that is, it is necessary to guarantee the people's freedom of speech, not to ban programs freely, and to prevent shady programs from getting caught in trouble. .

The FCC's supervision measures for low-lying programs can be divided into three types. One is to restrict the time period for broadcasting, that is, such programs can only be broadcast before 6 o'clock in the morning and after 10 o'clock in the evening. Second, the program is rated according to the severity of violence, pornography, and indecent ingredients in the program. For different levels of restriction (eg PG level refers to programs that can be watched by parents); third is to block certain unsuitable program contents through technical means (V-CHIP). In order to further curb outdated programs, the FCC imposes heavy penalties on offenders. The television communication industry in the United States is dominated by private ownership and commercialization. In the field of commercial television, the television station can completely proceed from the perspective of economic interests to attract attention as the main pursuit. The character and taste of the program are subordinate to commercial profits. Therefore, except for some incitement to ethnic hatred, disclosure of state secrets, and obscene pornography, other content (including some adult programs) can be broadcast on television. However, all programs that may have adverse effects on children and adolescents must be broadcast under restrictive conditions. In recent years, as the issue of program vulgarization became more and more prominent and the parents’ protests continued, the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress could not stand it any longer. It actively proposed a law against vulgar programs and banned the vulgar performance of wireless television broadcasting. Violators Will be heavily penalized.

Regulatory implementation procedures take a combination of self-discipline and heteronomy. Self-discipline mainly includes industry self-discipline and individual self-discipline. Industry self-regulation means that industry associations (mainly the American Association of Broadcasters NAB) impose restrictions on the conduct of practitioners in the field through the formulation of professional norms. Individual self-discipline refers to the report that television stations must submit their broadcasts of law-abiding programs to the FCC every year. In terms of heteronomy, apart from the supervision and management of relevant government agencies, an important aspect is public supervision. Any citizen who finds out that there is a vulgar issue on any TV station can report and complain to the FCC. Some parent groups and juvenile protection groups often become the mainstay of television program supervision.

In order to effectively implement the supervision, the FCC established an Executive Board on November 8, 1999, which is specifically responsible for receiving reports and complaints from the public about the vulgarity of radio and television programs. The public can report complaints through letters, emails, faxes, and other methods. The Executive Board receives the complaint and registers the relevant information in the basic database. The FCC staff will read each complaint and determine whether the information it holds is sufficient to determine that the program violates the vulgar program ban. If it believes that the ban may have been violated, the FCC will begin investigations. The FCC will send an inquiry letter to the involved TV agencies requesting the TV agency to confirm or deny the complaint and provide the FCC with video footage or scripts of all the programs involved in the complaint.

If there is insufficient evidence to prove that the television station violated the ban, the FCC will send a refusal letter to the complainant and inform him of the practice of continuing the complaint. The complainant may choose to add information before making a complaint or request reconsideration, and may also apply for reconsideration by the plenary session of the committee. If the investigation proves that the complaint has not occurred, the FCC will issue a rejection letter to the complainant or overturn allegations through public procedures. At the same time, the FCC will also maintain an annex and include in the annex the provisions on the ban on low-performing programs. If the confirmation of the allegation is established after the investigation, it means that illegal or illegal behavior has indeed occurred. The FCC will enter the penalty procedure and the punishment result will be announced on the official website of the FCC.

Judging criteria for vulgar programs The most central point in implementing the ban on program vulgarization is how to determine whether a TV program is a vulgar program. This is a worldwide problem. The vulgar issue is basically ethical and ethical, and it is not the same as erotic obscenity that is prohibited by law.

Many phenomena that belong to the category of "vulgarity", such as embarrassment and disrespect, are difficult to divide because of different cultural backgrounds in different countries and regions. The United States is a multi-ethnic country. This type of problem is particularly evident. The cultural conflict as reflected in the film scraping is a typical example. For another example, Japanese people like to use honorifics in conversations with others. Calling their names directly is considered disrespectful, but this is not the case in American society. Second, the moral and ethical standards of society are changing, and the standards adopted in different stages of development are not the same. The existence of these two factors has also made it more difficult to formulate criteria for evaluating vulgarization of programs.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation, determining whether or not a program belongs to content must meet three conditions: 1. The average person finds interest in the content of the program according to the community’s current standards and seeks a lustful interest (the program has a tendency to be excited about lustful thoughts. ); 2, The program blatantly describes sexual content that cannot be allowed under the law; 3. The program generally lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Vulgarized programs also include those who describe, describe, or excrete organs, or who speak in detriment of community standards. In evaluating whether to “broadly violate”, it must also meet three conditions: 1. Description and description are direct; 2. Such materials appear multiple times in the program; 3. Such materials in the program are intended to seduce others. . "Irreverent" refers to the language in the program that seriously invades other people's emotions. Their appearance in the program is annoying. The definition of "vulgarity" published by the FCC in 2001 is: The language or material in the content of a program is considered offensive to parents under the values ​​of contemporary society, or describes erotic activities and sexual organs. "Irreverence" is defined as a verbal abuse that can cause violent hatred or openly offends the public.

Another important issue in implementing the ban on program vulgarization is who will determine whether the program is "vulgar." Each ruling may mean a huge loss of property and reputational impact. The object of punishment will not easily recognize the penalty decision. Therefore, the conclusion of the ruling must withstand scrutiny. The FCC, as the executing unit, has the authority and responsibility for pre-arrangement, but once the ruling is wrong, it will cause new lawsuits and cause troubles for themselves. Therefore, the FCC will employ experts in this area as advisors, and will not easily issue tickets without the evidence being conclusive. Therefore, although there are thousands of complaints each year, the actual penalty is not more than a few.