Comment by noodlesUK | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noodlesUK | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I feel like this is generally far too small of a fine for something this serious. A deliberate use of an emergency signal to further an advertising campaign, especially an emergency signal that is literally designed to hijack neighbouring radio stations (though I’m not reading that this happened in this case) seems like a pretty egregious thing, and should result in a fine big enough to be noticeable on the balance sheets. I agree with some of the other commentators here that we should go further and ban things like car horns and brake squeals etc in radio programming (where a large number of listeners are driving and noises like that could result in fatal collisions). I feel like a 500k fine would be justifiable for a car horn or similar, not a “prepare for a serious threat to life” emergency signal that is meant to sound very distinctive.

If I went to a public building and played a plausible sounding fake fire alarm over a megaphone I would almost certainly be arrested. They did this but to potentially millions of people.

The attention tone is for human consumption. The SAME header (the "chirps" of FSK-encoded data that precede the attention tone in an EAS broadcast) is the machine-readable part, and what will activate EAS receivers and cause broadcast interruptions in downstream stations.

It's an obscure mistake. The fine is a message. The deterrent is the fine for repeat violations, which would be higher.

Is it an obscure mistake? I don't know anyone who works in broadcasting and I know about the EAS tones and that they're reserved for an emergency. I would expect a network to have at least this minimal knowledge and to review content they broadcast.

Seems calculated and the fine should probably be 10x

> we should go further and ban things like car horns and brake squeals

While I agree with this in general, you need to be careful that songs like the "Nash Rambler" song wouldn't be banned. Same with a lot of other 50's - 60's hot rod songs that feature intros with tires squealing or car horns, etc. Maybe apply this only to advertisements but not to songs? But then again if it is unexpected it could be just as jarring if it is a new song you haven't heard before.

Yup.

This is literally poisoning the well of public discourse.

They should be adding a few zeros and pulling licenses.

>literally poisoning the well of public discourse

But that's Fox's bread and butter, it's what they do best!

Yea I agree. Something like $504,000 per second might be better.

I'd rather a $500,000 fine that actually gets collected than the ridiculous approach we take to spam calls where we fine people [9 figures](https://commsrisk.com/more-enormous-fines-proposed-for-roboc...) and make no attempt to collect it. TCPA's $1500/call sounds great but in actuality no one has have ever paid anything close to that and the spammers don't have anywhere near the amount of money to do that.

Sure, really we just need law enforcement to do its job here. I'm not sure why they don't.

I've had a lot of issues with spam calls that began only when my mom became terminally ill and I was assisting her. They'd call "this is senior aide helper" (among others) and would call "verified" from the carrier with local numbers. I can't imagine how many Americans who are dealing with trouble in their lives are being scammed here. The FCC should fine the telecom companies $1,500/reported spam call. That would stop this over night.

I don't know who is paying who to prevent us from stopping this, but it sure as fucking hell looks to me like people in our government don't give a damn about citizens.

Hasn't yelling "FIRE" in any venue been a really punishable crime for many a decade?

Coincidentally I've seen a few articles "debunking" this recently, but I feel like a cop could pretty easily shoehorn someone doing so into another offense category.... Like disorderly something or inciting something.

https://reason.com/2022/10/27/yes-you-can-yell-fire-in-a-cro...

https://www.whalenlawoffice.com/blog/legal-mythbusting-serie...

1. Yelling "Fire" is not an offense. Especially if there is a fire, but even if not.

2. If you cause damage to property, you may be liable - especially if you do so for no reason as opposed to eg escaping a burning building.

(2) is not dependent on some special word you have to shout. If you shout "Ah robotic snakes!" (falsely) and cause damage to people and property, then you have in fact caused damage to people and property. You will probably need to atone for that.

I'd add popehat's write-up to the list.

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

That article doesn't even purport to address the question of whether shouting fire in a theater is punishable. It says you shouldn't use that fact to support your arguments in favor of punishing other speech.

> Coincidentally I've seen a few articles "debunking" this recently

Yeah, there are a number of those. But they never actually contradict the claim. They point out that it's perfectly legal to shout "fire" if the theater is on fire, as if everyone using the analogy were confused.

There's a crowded theater and nothing is on fire. You shout "fire!". Someone yells back "shutup! the movie is on!"

You have not committed a crime, other than talking during a movie.

That's because you need to cause damage. The same actions by you do constitute a crime if somebody believes you.

You shout "Ennui!" in a crowded theater.

Everyone is struck by ennui. People cry and gnash teeth. There is a stampede of people. The movie is ruined. Counselors and meditation teachers have to be deployed.

You are very likely looking at criminal charges! How can this be?

It can't be; there is no risk that people will panic upon hearing "ennui".

It doesn't matter what you shout. "Fire!", "Ennui!" or "Robot snakes!"

It matters whether or not if you cause damage.

If you cause a riot wordlessly.. you can still be at fault for a crime.

A man, holding a salmon, shoots a woman. Is the man a murderer?

What if he's holding a tuna?

That's the same as the shouting fire example. It doesn't matter what fish the murderer is holding, it doesn't matter what you yell if you do a crime.

You don't seem to know much about the law involved here.

I have a lot of time studying first amendment cases in particular. If you're going to dismiss me, please at least make a counter argument.

So, uh... where can I get more of them robot snakes?

--Dave Chappele

That's not germane. Broadcast licensees agree as a condition of receiving and maintaining their licenses that they will not do what Fox Sports did.

No. It is perfectly legal to campaign against your government being in a war. Well at least in US, other places don't have free speech.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com