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Video Games Not Protected Form of Speech
E-Rock writes "Video Games are lumped with child porn as unprotected forms of speech. "A federal judge said local governments can limit children's access to violent or sexually explicit video games, saying games are not constitutionally protected forms of speech." Story with limited details at Nando."
I know at my local stores, if you want to buy a 'M'ature game, you have to show ID if you appear under 17. There are games which, quite frankly, aren't appropriate for that crowd. It's just the same as buying adult magazines and stuff--they won't let you in/let you buy if you're not of age. What's the big deal here?
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
The original law that was to be simply limited underage children:
"The ordinance, passed in 2000, would require children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games. "
(from the article)
I don't see anything wrong with this; it's the same way with movies in many places.
The problem is, of course, that once video games aren't protected as free speech, that they can start cracking down on whatever they feel like cracking down on.
Better protect your copies of GTA3!
If (at least in some states) source code is free speech, and games are just the result of that code, I don't see how this is going to hold up under appeal. IANAL (obviously).
This is just another example of how the US government is taking away basic freedoms from their citizens. At this point in our history, the average US citizen (naturalized or otherwise) have fewer freedoms and rights then under the British government prior to the Revolutionary War. We have more taxes, no real representation in Congress since the Senators and Representatives are bought and paid for by big bussiness. We can't bear arms in most cites, stories in the press are censored, our homes can be searched without a warrent under very weak excuses from the police, the state takes over federal control on a number of issues including gun control. It's only a matter of time before we can't cross the street without breaking the law.
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
I have a friend that runs a videogaming site and repeated some interesting facts he heard about violence in video gaming, especially in the way it pertains to children. *The average video gamer is 28 years old *Last year(2001) only 9% of all videogames sold carried the M rating. Pretty sad information like this exists and people still want to point the finger at everything in world except their bad parenting.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
What about games that are porn? Am I the only person who actually enjoyed playing this series? It was risque, witty and very entertaining. Amazing that something so forward thinking hasn't been bothered to be duplicated with current game technology.
Hammer of Truth
The ordinance, passed in 2000, would require children under 17 to have parental consent before they can buy violent or sexually explicit video games or play similar arcade games. The council has suspended implementation of the ordinance until July 1.
Hmmm... doesn't say anything about limiting what you can depict, nor about limiting sales, nor about what you can do with it... It just says minors can't purchase it without concent. Now where have we seen that before?
Cigarettes?
Alcohol?
Firearms?
Porn videos?
Ok, so Little Johnny has to get his big brother to buy a copy of GTA4 (now with force-feedback hookers!)... annoying, but not any kind of threat to freedom that hasn't already been accepted for years.
Make up your minds people. Either children are NOT treated differently, in which case they can do all the bad things adults can do, but also have to pay all the penalties we do... or they ARE, in which case they get "protected" from things "we" think are "bad".
"Limbaugh said he reviewed four different video games and found 'no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech.'"
Well, then, that's settled. I agree with the "four items, one judge" standard. Next up: books! Find four books, and a judge who thinks those four are devoid of substance, and I think we can all agree we can rightfully declare that at that point, books would become "non-speech".
After books, of course, the next thing to lose its speech status should be speeches!
So dont be surprised that steve is issuing fascist rulings.
This space for rent.
Yawn.
I really think the /.'ers on this one need to tone it down a little bit, on the whole topic of "Net Censorship". I can tell that many people who tout freedom of speech/information in the context of violence and pornography don't have children, because their arguments are mostly fallacious.
An common example is when they say, "parents should monitor a kid's internet activity." This is true, but what they fail to recognize is that is isn't reasonable to expect a parent to be in constant supervision of a child on the internet. It doesn't take too long to wander into some truly nasty shit on the internet (especially if you start talking in newsgroups), and there is little to no way a parent can protect their children from this and at the same time let them benefit from the resources of the web.
Anyways, back to the original discussion. If someone is going to say that video games are lumped in with movies (child porn), I say... NO SHIT they are! They are both forms of media that are capable of presenting sexually explicit and inappropriate (by most people's standards) content to minors! Of course they are covered under a similar law! It makes sense!
I really think people need to chill out and realize that the internet and computer domain are in DIRE need of some INTELLIGENT regulation. I am not talking about mind-control here folks. I am talking about reasonable and mandatory guidelines put into place to help everyone have a better idea of what they are getting into when they surf the net/play a video game. Information wants to be free! So let's find a way to allow our children to safely explore that world of information which we adults enjoy so much.
BTW, this is US District Court Justice Stephen Limbaugh, SR. not Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen Limbaugh, JR. as someone responding to the previous story confused the two.
He came to it by analogy with sports. Here is his reasoning as I understood it. Baseball is a sport and not speech. Add violence to a sport, i.e. hockey or boxing, and its still not speech. He wasn't dealing with (or at least didn't mention) sexual content, he was dealing with violence.
I could find 4 games but instead I'll concentrate on one series of games. Since one example is enough to prove that not all games are devoid of content that should be protected as free speech. In Ultima IV, Richard Garriot (aka. Lord British) invented a system of beliefs for his imaginary world. I won't go into the details but this elaborate system promotes the following of eight virtues (such as compassion, justice, and so on). Now Lord British has received mail from people who told him how their life had changed because of that insight, that they had become better persons. This game influenced those people on a moral level, religious even. How can such a game not be protected by free-speech?
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