Analysis: Putting Our Finger on FCC Indecency Policy

There was lots of chatter and twitter over the bird flipped during the Super Bowl half-time show on NBC and whether that could possibly draw the Federal Communications Commission's attention as a violation of indecency policy. Currently, there are over a million complaints pending due to the current court challenges and ongoing uncertainty about the FCC's ability to enforce its policy, but the middle finger could fall under that current policy since the FCC has said that if they know what you mean, and the middle finger definitely conveys a specific four-letter command, the fact that the words, or images are not literally conveyed is not necessarily a shield.