PTC: Allegedly Bogus Complaints Should Not Hamstring FCC

The Parents Television Council has taken issue with Fox TV's assertion that the Federal Communications Commission needs to fix a flawed indecency complaint process before it attempts any more indecency regulating.

PTC says that any complaints that turn out to be bogus should be discounted. But it says that the 16 complaints Fox identified should not be reason for the FCC to ignore hundreds of thousands of others. Fox said in a filing at the Federal Communications Commission that since the FCC redacts names and addresses, it was impossible to tell just how many complaints might be bogus (the complaints Fox found came from phony addresses that were copies of complaints that had been sent to Fox TV stations by the complainants). The complaints in question were over an episode of Family Guy, a show PTC has frequently complained about itself in the past. "To whatever extent an indecency complaint filed with the FCC can be shown to be defective, those complaints should be set aside and dismissed."