>Oh, though, if it were an in-person demonstration sign in public, the kind that's for an audience of broadcast TV news cameras, I suppose maybe self-censoring the word might be more likely to get it on the air? Or at least that could be the thinking?

But by doing that it turns it from a demonstration into much more of a performance. Someone who's actually angry doesn't say "eff", he says "fuck". I would question how really angry or frustrated someone is if they still bother to self-censor while they rant. Think back to Samuel L. Jackson's censored line in Snakes on a Plane and try to imagine someone actually saying that. You'd think "well, okay. He's not that fed up about it if he's still joking around."

I suppose it does come across that way to some of the audience, but that might be necessary.

When I was learning photojournalism on the side, I shot a bunch of political demonstrations. A lot of those I saw were performances solely for media coverage (not really for, say, the occupants of a building they were in front of, nor for cars driving by). They would tell the media when they would be protesting, media would show up with cameras, media would leave, demonstration would disperse. For those media-centric ones, I guess it would be foolish to show a sign that the TV crew can't easily include in their footage (because it contains a banned word they'd have to go to work to edit out while already on a hectic news cycle schedule).