American Censorship

[anarcho-communist4]

Because my girlfriend watches a good amount of VH1 and MTV i have realized that the words GOD, BULLET, and GUN are now censored on television, and also because of the amount of mainstream radio she listens to i figured out they are also censored on the radio.

conversely in the phrase ASS HOLE, hole is no longer bleeped, but ASS is.

American censorship confuses the living fuck out of me, can someone explain their reasoning to me?

[Pioneers_Violin]

Because my girlfriend watches a good amount of VH1 and MTV i have realized that the words GOD, BULLET, and GUN are now censored on television, and also because of the amount of mainstream radio she listens to i figured out they are also censored on the radio.

conversely in the phrase ASS HOLE, hole is no longer bleeped, but ASS is.

American censorship confuses the living fuck out of me, can someone explain their reasoning to me?

It's not Reasoning, it's completely mindless.

There's a good bit of ancient puritanical idiocy mixed in with tons of political motivations.
It's not just "rude", "sexual", or "offensive" words that are censored here. Speakers have to be very careful of what and who they talk about or suggest as well.

Whole CONCEPTS are censored here or have be very carefully disclaimed.

Opinions, especially negative ones, also have to be very, very carefully worded and properly disclaimed.
Say something negative about certain Ethnic Groups (but not other ones) and congratulations! You're guilty of Hate Speech!


The Thought Police are very active in modern America.

[praxis1966]

There really is no explanation other than what they call the "standards and practices" department of individual networks. Yeah, there are some FCC rules concerning the issue, but they're complex and have a lot of exceptions.

In regards to MTV and VH1 blanking things like god, bullet, and gun, those I know for a fact are an individual network thing. It doesn't have anything to do with the actual government. Some of the rest of it depends on what time the show comes on and whether it's on a network, cable, or pay channel. However, I think the FCC ruled years ago that TV could show basically whatever it wanted, but that local governments could choose to censor such programs if they felt they were "below community standards." This exact thing happened with my hometown with respect to the show NYPD Blue when it was in its original run... I think they showed Andy Griffith reruns in that time slot every week or something back then, lol. The radio actually has a higher burden of what case law calls "community responsibility," so there's actually going to be more censorship there. I think the reasoning was at the time those legal precedents were set (ages ago IIRC), far and away more children had access to radios than did televisions.

I don't know if this helps or not, but that's how I understood it after taking an introduction to constitutional law course at my community college years ago, lol.

[Zealot]

To make it G-rated.

[praxis1966]

To make it G-rated.

Yeah, explain that to FX. Their shows Louie, Arrested Development, Rescue Me, The Shield, The League and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia were/are far from G-rated. Never mind AMC shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.

[Die Rote Fahne]

We can all thank Janet Jackson's nipple, and the horrible, horrible damage that seeing a nipple for 1/4 of a second can do to a poor poor child.