I’ve never seen a single episode of Married by America, so I missed the “sexually suggestive content” that prompted the FCC to slap the FOX network with a $1.2 million dollar indecency fine.
If all you watch is network or cable news, you probably heard that the FCC action came about “after letters of complaint were received.”
And that’s true: letters of complaint were received. Specifically? Three of them.
Journalist Jeff Jarvis used the Freedom of Information Act to acquire copies of all complaints received by the FCC. The packet includes:
– a letter from an FCC official, apologetically explaining there were not, as previously stated, 159 complaints … but only 90.
– an embarassing admission that, of the 90 actual complaints received, only 23 came from unique individuals
– proof that all but two of the complaints received were “virtually identical” — they came, in fact, from an automated “complaint factory“
Three actual letters — two unique ones, and one photocopied over and over and over. Three people actualy wrote complaint letters. Three people, using Internet tecnology and photocopiers to support their “conservative activism” motivated the FCC to levy a record-setting fine against the FOX network.
Here’s how it works: complaint factory websites (like OneMillionMoms.com and OneMillionDads.com) set up boilerplate complaint letters. To send one, all visitors have to do is point and click. Since the number of complaints received — not their content, and not how many people actually sent the complaints — counts, four or five people clicking over and over again can generate hundreds of complaints.
In fact, they don’t even need to bother to click several hundred times: in the case of Married by America, fewer than a hundred clicks did the trick.
You may ask why you should care. After all, it’s hard to get your blood boiling over Married by America, isn’t it? I mean, maybe television didn’t need another reality series in which the heterosexual community flaunts its deep and abiding respect for the institution of marriage. So the show was cancelled. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is this: emboldened by easy victories like this one, the same people are coming after Will and Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and a long list of other programs which acknowledge to any extent that gay people exist.
Frankly? Rather than censoring themselves by simply turning off their own televisions, organizations like the AFA want to limit your entertainment options for you … and they’re learning that they can do so with as few as ninety clicks.
What can you do? For starters, you can use their technology against them. You could, for example, copy the following email and send it to fccinfo@fcc.gov. (Don’t worry that your email will look and sound just like mine. Remember — it’s the number of emails received, not their content, that counts. Heck, since they only count emails received, it dosn’t even matter if five hundred come from the same person … so send ’em multiple copies!)
To Whom It May Concern:
I’ve recently become aware that the record-setting $1.2 million dollar indecency fine levied against the FOX network was prompted by just ninety letters of complaint sent by no more than twenty-three unique invididuals … just three of whom bothered to write their own letters.
I think allowing just three people direct the resources and actions of the FCC is ridiculous in the extreme. As a taxpayer, I’m incensed that my FCC would be hoodwinked into becoming enforcers for three angry individuals … and, as an adult American, I’m concerned that our precious freedoms of speech and expression are being eroded.
We don’t need V-chips. We don’t need censorship. Every television in America comes with an off-switch … and if the AFA and their puppet organizations don’t care for what they see on television, they can exercise their freedom (by turning their own television off) without infringing on mine.
Please count my voice as one AGAINST further frivilous indecency charges.
Sincerely,
Your Name Here
Copy, paste, click Send … and voila: you’re now a liberal activist. Doesn’t that feel good?
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