February 19, 2007
In a story that may have implications for the video game violence debate, the Associated Press reports that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) believes the government may be able to regulate televised violence in a manner that does not violate free speech guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.While the FCC has no authority over video game content, it is forseeable that the agency's idea for Congress to regulate T.V. violence could lead to similar legislation involving video game. From the AP story:
The long-overdue report suggests Congress could craft a law that would let the agency regulate violent programming much like it regulates sexual content and profanity -- by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching, for example...
Citing studies, the draft says there is evidence that violent programming can lead to "short-term aggressive behavior in children," according to an agency source, who asked not to be identified because the commission has not yet approved the report.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps (left), a Democrat, told the AP:
The pressure to do something on this is building right now. People really feel strongly about this issue all across this land. This is not a red state or a blue state issue.
But, as the AP notes, the issue is fraught with challenges:
First, the FCC or Congress would have to define excessive violence. The agency is mulling several possibilities, including one devised by Morality in Media Inc., a group whose motto is "promoting decent society through law."
Even if a definition can be devised, more problematic is the issue of how to determine what is worthy of sanction and what is not.
"Will it count on the news?" asked Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media. "Will it count on news magazines like 60 Minutes and Dateline? What about hockey games when the gloves come off and people start punching each other?"
Rintels said such rules would create "huge gray areas of censored content."
Comments
Peronaly, I could list a mile long list of examples of the FCC going to far, but I'm half asleep now and should even be up. But you all know what i'm talking about.
Anyway, have a good night.
What Dennis didn't mention here is that this would be part of yet another bid by the FCC to extend their jurisdiction into satellite and cable, which as Brer had also pointed out will be very difficult as (emphasis mine) YOU CAN'T REGULATE CONTENT THAT PEOPLE WILLINGLY PAY FOR TO BRING INTO THEIR HOMES.
If the FCC gets their way, expect to see them come down hard on popular shows whre "violence" is integral to their plots. Bye-bye Heroes. Bye-bye Lost. Bye-bye 24, not to mention a lot of your favorite animated action shows which they would believe to be aimed at children but are watched by quite a few adults too.
Hopefully the Entertainment Industry will fight hard against this and not roll over the way they did at the hearings held in the wake of Nipplegate in '04. It seems that we here in America are willing to fight harder for violence in our entertainment than we are for sex. "Censor sex? Ok, we'll concede that. Take away our violence? Hell no!"
The FCC is obviously telling the morons in Congress what they want to hear, as their daft draft is packed full of lies and fear-mongering.
Where is this supposed “evidence that violent media content can impact kids behavior”? The same evidence that’s been so throughly rejected by the federal circuit courts, rejecting attempts in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Washington state, Illinois, Michigan, California, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Oklahoma over the past five years to restrict the sales of “violent” video games to minors?
The rulings against Louisiana and Oklahoma in particular will derail the FCC’s attempt to regulate violence on TV, as those two states attempted to add violence to the Supreme Court definition of obscenity, which is presumably what the FCC and Congress is attempting here.
“Promoting a Decent Society Through selective brain surgery”
Joooiiiin uuuus...
Another example of "short-term aggressive behavior":
Idiots leaving yesterday's newspaper in their paper tubes.
I'm sure Dennis has heard some paper carriers complaining about that.
"Promoting a Decent Society Through Law" sounds like politi-speak for "let's get rid of the gays, the blacks, and the jews"
At this point, only 18.9% (give or take) of Television watching households in the US are broadcast-only (according to Nielsen), and that number gets smaller and smaller each year (interestingly it seems like satellite TV services like DirecTV are actually having the best growth right now, since they're gaining converts from both the broadcast -and- cable market shares). Anything that affects the appeal of broadcast television for consumers (like not being able to watch the shows you want until inconveniently late hours, when they're being shown in that key late afternoon to early evening block on cable) will further reduce that market share. Anything that forces broadcasters into bad business situations (like being forced to air expensively licensed, highly-rated violent shows in bad time slots when advertisers won't support them) will hurt their ability to compete, driving some small local stations out of business and generally hurting the ones that remain, -again- reducing the relevance of "broadcast only" television.
In short, if the FCC cripples broadcast television all they're doing in the long run is creating more Cable and Satellite customers...driving consumers towards the least restrictive options, and hamstringing their own power.
Just like you don't see propaganda with tag lines like "Beat back the Huns".
The irony of that was not lost on me. Actually, I came out and mentioned it in my latest Livejournal post on this topic. Glad to see I'm not the only one who was conscious of that fact. :)
I said, SPECIFICLY, that the replacment group should have none or very limited content censorship powers, what i forgot to mention is, that they will be the ONLY authroity over the airways, PERIOD, end of story. By making them the ultimate authority while not allowing them to control content, you lock out all other forces that might try to censor. In the end, it will be simple. All we need is for the free thinking people of the US to send a loud message to the government.
"1st amendment is the only authority for content"
Thats the end of the discussion. If you don't like howard stern, thats fine, change the station. don't like whats on tv, change the channel. Don't like a movie, don't buy it, don't like certain music, don't buy it.
The fact is, the Government should have never gotten into the censorship bussiness, EVER. That lies in the hands of parents and adults only. No one else.
And for those of you wondering ,YES, I do mean it across the board.
I think the fact that the government was ever allowed to establish any type of censorship was a horrible mistake. While I don't disagree with the idea that kids shouldn't be exposed to certain things, I also feel that if a parent is unable to, or unwilling to as is often the case, thats there problems, Not yours, Mine, or the governments
/rant
"What did the government do during WWI and WWII? Ask joe public to ration stell food gas anything that could be used to fight the war and the people did so"
I highly doubt that would happen nowadays.
OVER NINE THOUSANDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While you and your bro acted out DBZ, did you stop for hours to either talk and yell about how you were gonna beat each other up and charge your powers, finally ending the night with a "to be continued tomorrow" ?
It seems that we here in America are willing to fight harder for violence in our entertainment than we are for sex. “Censor sex? Ok, we’ll concede that. Take away our violence? Hell no!”
This should not be surprising AT ALL.
How was our country founded? A violent revolution. What did the government do during WWI and WWII? Ask joe public to ration stell food gas anything that could be used to fight the war and the people did so. In fact one major breach of first amendment rights set out to punish anyone who spoke out against WWI and the draft after the U.S. entered it (Alien and Sedition acts i believe). Most fairy tales feature violence as well (see red riding hood, hansel and gretel, and sleeping beauty all of which have the bad guy slain by the hero) and of course there is bugs bunny who immortalized the act of dropping an anvil on someone's head.
It's time to stop them here and now because this is where i draw the line. Just think of what could happen if they become successful, pay per view violence for starters. Kids are violent all the time, in fact i saw a kid of about 3 or 4 at mcdonalds banging a couple of toys together and saying "bang pow bam" and his parents didn't seem to mind or think anything odd of it because frankly it didn't look a thing out of the ordinary.
If this bill gets any and i mean any progress we must declare battle against this this insult of human intelligence this travesty of human rights and this pathetic last ditch effort to win a battle that should have been over a long time ago. As Twain himself put it censorship is like saying a man can't eat a steak because a baby can't chew it. Are we going to let the maturity level of a 5 year old suddenly become the standard to which everything must account to? No it's even a five year old level because clearly these scum have no real knowledge of how well a 5 or 6 year old can handle violence since it is the 5 year olds who are the main market of G.I. Jos and the ones who like to knock over block buildings at playtime. In fact it gets even worse than that since the only realistic violence that could possibly impact a child is shown on the 9 or 11 o clock news long after they should be in bed (besides how many 5 year old actually like to watch the news anyway). So are we going to let these self-righteous pricks tell us what is immoral and wrong when one of the main tenets this country was founded and fought on was the ability to decide for oneself what to believe in? They say they want to promote a decent society when any decent society won't allow a couple of nutjobs to mandate what is right and wrong to throngs of people they never met when they were never given any formal permission to speak for the throngs of people they want to control.
"not to mention a lot of your favorite animated action shows which they would believe to be aimed at children but are watched by quite a few adults too."
Justice League got cancelled, and Teenage Mutant Nnja Turtles got castrated by the network into a more kid-friendly, toy-selling-oriented format with this "Flash Forward" shit.
Basically, all there is left matching that criteria is Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (which is comedy, not action). Any animes that fit this - Naruto, DBZ, etc. - are censored anyway.
"If it pertians to a minor's morbid fascination with violence.
If it has no serious artistic scientific, or political for minors
If it is patently offensive to the adult community"
I actually have no idea how it might be worded and since they seem to be serious about this i highly doubt they'd word it after failed bills.
Anyway this bill is a disaster waiting to happen or if not a guaranteed failure. Censorship aside short term aggresive behavior is nothing to get worked up about. If porn only has a short term psychological impact with no noticeable long term psychological impacts do you think it would be as tightly controlled as it is now? Also agressive behavior is nothing compared to porn side effects.
I think you completely mis interpreted the reasons for Germany banning WW2 games.
So? Putting a kid in timeout can lead to 'short-term aggressive behavior'. Telling a kid to eat their lima beans can lead to 'short-term aggressive behavior'.
Conejo actually has a point, if he is overstating it. I'm scared of any organization that wants to "promote" its "values" on others through law. People have the right to live life their way so long as it doesn't violate the natural rights of others. Just because you think something is wrong doesn't make it so. It is just like saying following catholicism is wrong or being gay is wrong. If not quite as blatant.
You will think as we want you to think or we will make you think as we want you to think. - Sincerely Morality in Media.
It is scary when people start spouting rhetoric that would be at home in 1984.
@Wolf,
Maybe someday we'll get a president and a congress who realize what their job really is and streamline, cut back and limit the powers on alot of the programs currently funded by the government (vote jatone in 2020 for a freer tomorrow! ^_^)
My brother and I use to watch Dragon Ball Z alot on cartoon network back in the day, when it was really popular. We were about 10 or 11 so you can imagine what we did. Thats right, we fought each other, like in the show. Just think, if they blocked that kind of stuff, then what?
Most children know the difference between fantasy and reality. Those that dont, have something wrong with them.
Besides, children WILL discover this kind of stuff anyway. Its like the germans trying to forget about WWII and their part that they played. Remember that little peice? Germany is trying to get WWII games banned because they might "portray germans in a bad light".
You can not hide whats really out there. The world is a scary place, but it is also a beautiful place if you let it be. To block either of these two factors for "saftey" reasons, only proves to do more harm than good.
Yeah, I dispise the FCC. Always have.
Well, I suppose this is their bid for relevance. Why they think attempting something that is quite transparently unconstitutional is going to help them, I don't know. Perhaps they have succumbed to Washington groupthink.
It is in everyone's best interest to keep violence on the "air" (and by that I mean satellite or cable). Could you imagine trying to ship off a generation of carebear-ed kids to fight in Iran?
Dear GP, scary photo.
Apparently the FCC is basing this around the concept of the hours of 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (AKA Prime Time) as a "Safe Harbor," which was popularized in the 60s and 70s and by now is an outdated concept. I remember back in the day that bedtime for me and my sister was 9:00 PM. No if's, and's or but's! (unless of ocurse it was a special occasion). This policy remained in effect until our teens.
I also find this laughable that now they believe that the V-Chip and the TV ratings "aren't doing their job!" Well whose fault is that?! Not the industry's. They conceded that so they would prevent this sort of proposed legislation from happening in the first place! IIRC, it was mandated Federal law to put those V-Chips in! If they didn't work, then what was all that time, money and effort to put them in for?! Their health?!
It's been said time and time again: the responsibility rests with the PARENTS. The tools were given to them to use and there were ad campaigns to push awareness of them. It's not the industry's fault if they were too stupid, lazy or technophobic to use them. You know the bit about leading a horse to water and all that.
If there's anyone from the FCC or the government who's reading this (and I assume there is, as GP has been attracting a lot of movers and shkers of late), know this: if the V-Chips and the ratings weren't "doing their jobs" as you say, their failure can only attributed to the parents and yourselves. No one else. If memory serves, you mandated those ideas yourselves (at least the V-Chip). Don't go foisting the blame on the industry for your own mistakes and make the rest of us pay the price for it. >:(
There are already lots of things you can't do on TV that are unregulated in other media: words you can't say, body parts you can't show, etc. Since the precedent is alreadt that the standard is completely separate, i can't see tightening broadcast standards having much affect on other media, though it coudl limit the ability to market things.
The FCC has no jurisdiction over games because they are not broadcast over the public airwaves
Translation to videogames:
Sell violent games only during hours when kids are in school. That way the only kids who try to buy it are the delinquent kids who then are desensitized to violence anyway.[/sarcasm]
Happiness is mandatory, citizen...
That would be awfully dangerous. The minute they disband the FCC some cultural conservative is going to stand up and propose an executive body who's sole responsibility is censorship. That body will have a much better claim to censoring games and any other media that comes along than the FCC does, and will be that much harder to fight.
As it stands, they'd have to fight the argument of "Why do we need that when the FCC can do it?" With FCC out of the way we only have Constitutional free speech arguments and from what we've seen of how far free speech arguments can take us that becomes a scary thought indeed.
How many times have we heard that before....?
"People really feel strongly about this issue all across this land."
Actually, could it be because we want you to keep your brown noses out of it? Take a country wide survey and get back to me, which will be useless since if then umber who disagrees with you is bigger than the ones complying, that number will magically vanish from minds and never get mentioned, just like the ESRB.
It's probably just you. How do you equate "decency" with anti-semitism and racism? If you want to complain about MIM, do it because they want to make it largely illegal and very difficult for the average person to have access to pornography anywhere he goes. They have a lot of problems, but anti-semitism isn't one of them. :P
Obviously the FCC won't be able to touch games directly, but this could be a step towards convincing a judge that violent media and aggressive behaviour are linked. It's more the precedent that could be set we need to be wary of.