I've written about SpeakSpeak before. Right now, SpeakSpeak mainly functions as an antidote to the poisonous Parents (sic) Television Council, which seeks to use the Federal Communications Commission to impose their narrow, bigoted, repressive, uptight and generally odious worldview on the entire country. The FCC can "revoke a station license, impose a monetary forfeiture, withhold or place conditions on the renewal of a broadcast license, or issue a warning, for the broadcast of obscene or indecent material", and just what constitutes obscenity or indecency is pretty broadly defined. To be obscene, material must satisfy all of the following tests:

• An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
• The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and
• The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

So the FCC has a lot of leeway in carrying out its executive function; moreover:

Enforcement actions in this area are based on documented complaints received from the public about indecent or obscene broadcasting. The FCC’s staff reviews each complaint to determine whether it has sufficient information to suggest that there has been a violation of the obscenity or indecency laws.

So the self-appointed moral guardians of the PTC bombard the FCC with complaints every time there's a tit on the telly. Dealing with these complaints is a waste of public money, and -- more to the point, since we can do something about it -- there's a real danger that the manner in which FCC staff interpret the guidelines will be influenced. It's vital that the FCC not lose sight of their obligation to constitutionally protected freedom of speech. That's where SpeakSpeak comes in. Of particular importance here is the "average person, applying contemporary community standards" -- something the PTC cannot claim to represent if the FCC receives as many supportive messages as complaints about a given broadcast. SpeakSpeak thus makes it easy for the FCC to kick that third leg out from under obscenity complaints and avoid wasting time on the PTC's agenda.

Case in point: the PTC's latest whinefest concerns Fox's show The Inside. It sounds like unbearable shite to me, and anyway I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than watch anything on Fox. Nonetheless, it's not obscene by any reasonable interpretation of FCC standards (it's Episode 2 they're on about). By the PTC's own admission, what they are complaining about takes place offscreen (dammit, I'll have to link to 'em: their complaint is here). I would certainly find that episode, and the whole show, distasteful -- which, and here's a free clue for all you moral majority Pecksniffs, is why I don't watch it. Commitment to freedom of speech is measured in units of tolerance for speech one does not like.

You can go here to help defend that idea.