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How would the following be interpreted?
April 24, 2013 COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934
Title VI CABLE COMMUNICATIONS
SEC. 638. ø47 U.S.C. 558¿ CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LIABILITY. Nothing in this title shall be deemed to affect the criminal or civil liability of cable programmers or cable operators pursuant to the Federal, State, or local law of libel, slander, obscenity, incitement, invasions of privacy, false or misleading advertising, or other similar laws, except that cable operators shall not incur any such liability for any program carried on any channel designated for public, educational, governmental use or on any other channel ob-tained under section 612 or under similar arrangements unless the program involves obscene material.
SEC. 612. ø47 U.S.C. 532¿ CABLE CHANNELS FOR COMMERCIAL USE.
(h) Any cable service offered pursuant to this section shall not be provided, or shall be provided subject to conditions, if such cable service in the judgment of the franchising authority or the cable operator is obscene, or is in conflict with community standards in that it is lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent or is otherwise unpro-tected by the Constitution of the United States. This subsection shall permit a cable operator to enforce prospectively a written and published policy of prohibiting programming that the cable oper-ator reasonably believes describes or depicts sexual or excretory ac-tivities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards.
Per Wiki - United States free speech exceptions
Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising.
Fighting words
In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the Supreme Court held that speech is unprotected if it constitutes "fighting words".[34] Fighting words, as defined by the Court, is speech that "tend[s] to incite an immediate breach of the peace" by provoking a fight, so long as it is a "personally abusive [word] which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, is, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke a violent reaction".[35] Additionally, such speech must be "directed to the person of the hearer" and is "thus likely to be seen as a 'direct personal insult'".[36][37]
“True threats of violence” that are directed at a person or group of persons that have the intent of placing the target at risk of bodily harm or death are generally unprotected.[38] However, there are several exceptions. For example, the Supreme Court has held that "threats may not be punished if a reasonable person would understand them as obvious hyperbole", he writes.[39][40] Additionally, threats of "social ostracism" and of "politically motivated boycotts" are constitutionally protected.[41]
Commercial speech
Commercial speech occupies a unique role as a free speech exception. While there is no complete exception, legal advocates recognize it as having "diminished protection".[48] For example, false advertising can be punished and misleading advertising may be prohibited.[49] Commercial advertising may be restricted in ways that other speech can't if a substantial governmental interest is advanced, and that restriction supports that interest as well as not being overly broad.[50] This doctrine of limited protection for advertisements is due to a balancing inherent in the policy explanations for the rule, namely that other types of speech (for example, political) are much more important.[51]
There seems to be something in there that could impact cable programmers or operators or both.
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