47 C.F.R. § 73.1217

Broadcast hoaxes

Read at: eCFRecfr.gov CornellLII GovInfogovinfo.gov CasesGoogle Scholar

(a) No licensee or permittee of any broadcast station shall broadcast false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if:

(1) The licensee knows this information is false;

(2) It is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm, and

(3) Broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm.

(b) Any programming accompanied by a disclaimer will be presumed not to pose foreseeable harm if the disclaimer clearly characterizes the program as a fiction and is presented in a way that is reasonable under the circumstances.

(c) For purposes of this rule, “public harm” must begin immediately, and cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties. The public harm will be deemed foreseeable if the licensee could expect with a significant degree of certainty that public harm would occur. A “crime” is any act or omission that makes the offender subject to criminal punishment by law. A “catastrophe” is a disaster or imminent disaster involving violent or sudden event affecting the public.

[89 FR 7254, Feb. 1, 2024]
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 3 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 2012–2023 · leading case: United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012).
United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012). · cites it 2× “, 47 CFR §73.1217 (2011) (requiring showing of foreseeability and actual substantial harm); 18 U.”
Rodriguez-Cotto v. Pierluisi-Urrutia (D.P.R. 2023). · cites it 2× “§ 1038 (a)(1); and 47 C.F.R. § 73.1217 (2011)(the Federal Communications Commission’s (“F.”
Kimberly Lomastro v. Margaret Iacovelli, in her capacity as interim superintendent for the Town of Johnston (R.I. 2015). “1217 of 47 CFR 73.1217.” In the letter, the school department also took issue with Lomastro’s “refusal to maintain radio contact, not utilizing her cellular telephone, placing students in harm[’]s way as a result of unwarranted panic, allowing a student to obtain names of who…”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.