FCC on Indecency: Changing the Law After the Fact?

Language expert Bill Poser criticizes the Federal Communications Commission’s recent ruling that “ABC violated decency standards by briefly showing a woman’s naked buttocks, and finds it wanting. In particular Poser critiques the FCC’s claim that buttocks are a ‘sexual organ,’” as the FCC’s own indecency regulations require. (The FCC fined ABC $1.4 million over an NYPD Blue episode).

In essence, he argues that the FCC reinterpreted its rules to retroactively expand the definition of indecency, in order to ensnare ABC.