Slashdot Mirror
Grand Theft Auto Ban To Be Decided By Courts
Wingchild writes "Haitian civil rights groups in Florida have filed a lawsuit with the circuit court in Palm Beach County, which Rockstar Games has asked to be moved up to a federal court for a final decision on whether or not their game has to be banned from stores. This move happens as the court of media opinion begins weighing in on the subject (facts irrelevant, of course), a fact which Slashdot Games noted a scant two days ago."
"When did parents stop taking responsibility for the games that their children play, the cd's that their children listen to, and the movies that their children watch? In my opinion, a game is free speech, and should therefore be protected under the First Amendment."
Agreed!
Wrong. It is as easy as that.
Don't make the mistake of thinking it's ok to let the government limit speech that some find offensive. Once those limits start, you won't be able to stop them.
One example springs to mind. In the U.K., "hate speech" is illegal. A politician said in one of his speeches that "we need better controls of immigration because too many undesirables are entering the country" (not an exact quote). He was charged with making a hate speech. Even though the charges were dropped, it still shows the danger of these types of laws.
The answer to bad speech is more speech.
-- Will program for bandwidth
And Freedom of Speech? Pah, fuck Freedom of Speech. There are certain situations in which I approve restricted speech. Here in Germany pro-nazi speaking is banned. Saying that Auschwitz never exsisted is a crime here.
And if a game's content goes too far, it should be banned.
Your country is exactly why freedom of speech is even more important now than it was back in the days of our founding fathers. I mean, what happened to German that spoke against the Nazis when they came to power...? The Nazis were also famous for burning books, should we build our bon-fires high with anything unpopular, denying the exact reason why we have yet to have a Hitler?
I don't normally throw the Nazi card at Germans, but damn if you didn't just ask for it.