4 ms·

> (Except for the 7 words, but you can pretty much communicate any idea without those 7 words.) The radio stations could play pretty much any music they wanted,

by JadeNB 7y ago

> (Except for the 7 words, but you can pretty much communicate any idea without those 7 words.) The radio stations could play pretty much any music they wanted, as long as they edited out the 7 words or weren't too sexually explicit. Not that I really think that the American marketplace of ideas was more repressive than the Soviet one—I don't—but, if you need that many qualifiers to assert freedom of speech, then you don't really have it. ("You must avoid these words, but we're sure you can manage to say what you want without them" certainly sounds positively Soviet.)

MS90 7y ago
I see what you're getting at, but it should be mentioned that the words were "vulgar" language that had nothing to do with anything political. Anyone who wanted to keep up even the most minimal appearance of professionalism and be taken seriously, even today, likely wouldn't use one of the "seven dirty words" (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits). And no KGB type entity would whisk you away in the night for saying any of them. It's even vague whether or not the FCC ever even enforced it at all. Hell, it's kinda vague on whether or not it was even a rule before George Carlin's comedy bit. The Supreme Court later even ruled it as...too vague. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words
jimktrains2 7y ago
While I think the censoring of "dirty words" (e.g. shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits[0]) isn't useful, I would be hard pressed to say that those 7 words limit political discourse. The FCC also doesn't keep a list of words, just a vauge definition of "indecency" which has been challenged successfully in court. This all only applies to broadcast mediums; cable TV stations, the internet, books, &c are not covered by FCC regulations. While I think indecency and obscenity standards are problematic, the whittling of them by the courts, and that the courts can be brought into this at all, especially successfully, is an important factor in rebuffing these regulations as "positivity Soviet". [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words

by JadeNB 7y ago

MS90 7y ago

I see what you're getting at, but it should be mentioned that the words were "vulgar" language that had nothing to do with anything political. Anyone who wanted to keep up even the most minimal appearance of professionalism and be taken seriously, even today, likely wouldn't use one of the "seven dirty words" (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits). And no KGB type entity would whisk you away in the night for saying any of them. It's even vague whether or not the FCC ever even enforced it at all. Hell, it's kinda vague on whether or not it was even a rule before George Carlin's comedy bit. The Supreme Court later even ruled it as...too vague. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words

jimktrains2 7y ago

While I think the censoring of "dirty words" (e.g. shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits[0]) isn't useful, I would be hard pressed to say that those 7 words limit political discourse. The FCC also doesn't keep a list of words, just a vauge definition of "indecency" which has been challenged successfully in court. This all only applies to broadcast mediums; cable TV stations, the internet, books, &c are not covered by FCC regulations. While I think indecency and obscenity standards are problematic, the whittling of them by the courts, and that the courts can be brought into this at all, especially successfully, is an important factor in rebuffing these regulations as "positivity Soviet". [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words