Ableep censor is the replacement ofprofanity andclassified information with abeep sound (usually abeepⓘ), which is typically a 1kilohertzsine wave, used in public television, radio, and on social media.
Bleeping has been used as a standard since the 1990s as a means ofcensoring TV and radio programs to remove content not deemed suitable for "family", "daytime", "broadcasting", or "international" viewing, as well as sensitiveclassified information for security.[1] The bleep censor is a software module, manually operated by a broadcasttechnician.[2] A bleep is sometimes accompanied by a digital blurpixelization or box over the speaker's mouth in cases where the removed speech may still be easily understood bylip reading.[3]
Insubtitles, bleeped words are usually represented by[bleep]. Sometimes the phrases[expletive],[beep],[censored], and[explicit] are used, while it is also common (though less so) to seehyphens (e.g. abbreviations of the wordfuck likef—kf---), a series of X's, orasterisks and other non-letter symbols (e.g.,****,f***,f**k,f*ck,f#@k,f#@%, orf*k), remaining faithful to the audio track. The characters used to denote censorship in text are calledgrawlixes.[4]Where open captions are used (generally in instances where the speaker is not easily understood) a blank is used where the word is bleeped. A character that is used to denote censoring can technically replace multiple letters, though it is not standard.[citation needed] Occasionally, bleeping is not reflected in the captions, allowing the unedited dialogue to be seen.[citation needed] Sometimes, ablack bar can be seen for a closed caption bleep.[5][better source needed]
Bleeping is mostly used in unscripted programs such asdocumentaries,radio features, andpanel games, since scripted productions are designed to suit the time of their broadcast. For example, on theDiscovery Channel, bleeping is extremely common. In the case of scripted comedies, most bleeping may be used for humorous purposes, and other sound effects may be substituted for the bleep tone for comical effect; examples of this include aslide whistle, a baby cooing,dolphin noises, or the "boing" of aspring. Some scripted comedies purposely incorporate bleeping for comedic purposes; for example, profanity in the American sitcomReno 911! is always bleeped as the show is presented in amockumentary style, while arecurring joke used in sketches by Australian comedy groupAunty Donna features the bleep appearing slightly too late, resulting in the original profanity being clearly heard before it is immediately followed by a bleep that either serves no purpose or interrupts what the speaker was saying after they had already used profanity. InJimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday-night segment named "This Week In Unnecessary Censorship", the bleep censor is used for comedic effect in cases when an actual expletive is not present to make them appear inappropriate or profane by editing clips from television programs, news, speeches, interviews, and sometimes animated series and movies, as well as in fan-made online videos that resemble the "Unnecessary Censorship" format.[6][7] Additionally,Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show has not regularly aired live since April 23, 2004, when censors were unable to properly bleep censor a barrage of swearing from actorThomas Jane.[8]
Other uses of bleeping may includereality television,infomercials,game shows, and daytime/late nighttalk shows, where the bleep conceals personally identifying information such as ages,surnames, addresses/hometowns, phone numbers, and attempts to advertise a personal business without advanced or appropriate notice, in order to maintain the subject's privacy (as seen for subjects arrested in episodes ofTraffic Cops orCOPS).[9][better source needed]
Whenfilms are edited for daytime/nighttime TV, broadcasters may prefer not to bleep swearing, but cut out the segment containing it, replace the speech with different words, or cover it with silence or asound effect.[citation needed]
Bleeping is commonly used inEnglish-language,Russian-language andJapanese-language broadcasting, and also in ex-Eastern Bloc countries like Poland, Hungary, Romania,Baltic states, mostpost-Soviet states, but is sometimes and rarely used in some other languages (such asArabic,Chinese,Danish,Dutch,Icelandic,Filipino,Finnish,French,German,Greek,Italian,Korean,Norwegian,Hebrew,Portuguese,Spanish,Swedish,Polish,Thai,Turkish andUkrainian), displaying the varying attitudes between countries; some are more liberal towards swearing, less inclined to use strong profanities in front of a camera in the first place, or unwilling to censor. For example, in Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, the bleep censor is not used for censoring out swear words on the television and radio broadcasting as people from these countries people swear more freely than people from English-speaking countries.[10][11][12] Instead, the bleep censor on the television in these countries is mostly used for censoring out any sensitive information, rather than censoring out profanity, as was the case in the Dutch investigative television programPeter R. de Vries: Crime Reporter, which aired from 1995 to 2012.[13]
On live TV airings, live TV broadcastings prefer to mute the sound to censor profanity rather than bleep over it.[14] This was already the case on March 27, 2022, when American television broadcaster ABC muted the sound during a live broadcast of the Oscars afterWill Smith slapped Chris Rock and shouted, "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!",[15] to which Rock responded, "Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me!". Nevertheless, the complete verbal exchange between Smith and Rock was broadcast uncensored in other countries like Japan, China, Australia, and Argentina.[16]
Bleeping frequently occurs in videos on the Internet.YouTube videos often have profanity bleeped or muted out as YouTube policy specifies that videos including profanities may be "demonetized" or stripped of ads.[17] Beginning in 2019, the bleep censor began to be more often used for censoring out wordsrelated to sensitive and contentious topics to evade algorithmic censorship online, especially onMeta andTikTok platforms.[18][19]
Under theOfcom guidelines,television andradio commercials are not allowed to use bleeps to obscure swearing underBACC/CAP guidelines. However, this does not apply to program trailers or cinema advertisements and "fuck" is bleeped out of two cinema advertisements forJohnny Vaughan'sCapital FM show and the cinema advertisement for theFamily Guy season 5 DVD.[citation needed] An advert foresure insurance released in October 2007 uses the censor bleep, as well as a black star placed over the speaker's mouth, to conceal the name of a competitor company the speaker said she used to use.[citation needed] The Comedy Central advert forSouth Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut had a version of "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" where vulgarities were bleeped out, though the movie itself did not have censorship, and was given a 15 rating.[citation needed]
ABarnardo's ad, released in summer 2007, has two versions: one where a boy can be heard saying "fuck off" four times which is restricted to "18" rated cinema screenings, and one where a censor bleep sound obscures the profanity which is still restricted to "15" and "18" rated films.[20] Neither is permitted on UK television.
Trailers for programs containing swearing are usually bleeped until well after the watershed, and it is very rare for any trailer to use the most severe swear words uncensored.[citation needed]
In the United States, theFederal Communications Commission has the rights to regulate indecent broadcasts. However, the FCC does not actively monitor television broadcasts for indecency violations, nor does it keep a record of television broadcasts. Reports must be documented exclusively by the public and submitted in written form, whether by traditional letter ore-mail.
The FCC is allowed to enforce indecency laws during 6 a.m. – 10 p.m. local time.[21] In addition, for network broadcasts, offensive material seen duringwatershed in one time zone may be subject to fines and prosecution for stations in earlier time zones: for instance, a program with offensive content broadcast at 10 p.m.Eastern Time/Mountain resulted in many stations being fined because of this detail.[citation needed] It falls out of watershed at 9 p.m.Central Time/Pacific Time. To compensate, a channel may only air uncensored material after 1 a.m.Eastern Time so that the broadcast is in watershed in the contiguous United States. For example,Comedy Central only airs uncensored after 1 a.m. so that Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain Time, and Pacific Time all have it past 10 p.m.[citation needed]
Cable and satellite channels are subject to regulations on what the FCC considers "obscenity", but are exempt from the FCC's "indecency" and "profanity" regulations, though many police themselves, mainly to appeal to advertisers who would be averse to placing their ads on their programs.
Some television and cinematic productions work around the requirement of a censor bleep by writing dialogue in a language that the intended audience is unlikely to understand (for example, Joss Whedon'sFirefly used untranslated Chinese curses to avoid being "bleeped",[22] while theStar Trek: The Next Generation episodes "The Last Outpost" and "Elementary, Dear Data" have the character of CaptainJean-Luc Picard utter the French obscenity,merde, which is equivalent to "shit" in English.).
TheArthur episode "Bleep" censored out a bad word that D.W. says in the story in order to have an episode about swearing without needing to expose child viewers to the word.
In Russia, the use of a bleep censor on television and radio broadcasting, and movies is very commonplace due to the laws that do not allow the use of foul language without giving a list of banned words, as mass media may face fines.[23][24] On April 8, 2013, amendments were adopted to the law regulating the activities of the media in Russia, which prohibited the "use of obscene language", i.e.mat in Russian mass media.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)| By language | |
|---|---|
| Devices | |
| Other | |
