FCC Looks Into Regulating Violence on TV

The Importance of writes "The FCC's regulation of indecent and profane speech has gotten a lot of attention recently. Now, the FCC is considering getting into the business of regulating violence on television (broadcast and cable/satellite). This isn't unexpected, because the House Commerce Committee ordered the FCC to conduct the study. Notice of Inquiry [PDF] [TXT]. Somehow, I don't think the FCC is going to tell Congress there is nothing they can do about violence on TV."

Comments

Max?

[DAldredge]

Does everyone in DC have a tv set from max headroom? I mean how fscking hard is it to turn the tv off or program your tv to skip the channels you do not like?

Re:Max?

[Commander Trollco]

That doesn't matter, the point is to clamp down on what the plebs can see and hear. The consolidation of federal power has been going on since Hamilton, and this is just one small step for mankind's enslavement. Considered in the light of other news, anyone can see what direction we are headed in. "Slippery Slope" is not a fallacy, it is usually correct.

Re:Max?

[Lord Kano]

You seem to be missing the point my friend. This is all about money. It's a shakedown. Hollywood isn't passing around enough campaign funds. Congress will threaten regulation, a flood of campaign funds will flow in and the call for regulation will be forgotten.

This is just like every other argument, it isn't to protect the "average" person. It's to protect the morons who are too stupid to learn how to change the channel. And especially those people who are too stupid to use "The V Chip" that congress mandated be included in all new TV sets. Remember when they told us that they were mandating that so "parents" would be empowered to control the television viewing habits of their children? All of a sudden, that's not enough. MORE HAS TO BE DONE! I call bullshit. It's a smokescreen and a sham. This is about legal extortion, nothing more and nothing less.

LK

Re:Max?

[what the dumple is]

Funny* you should choose the phrase, "enslavement."

My fortune when I logged on today was:

A warning from Scots Historian Professor Alexander Tyler circa 1787 re the fall of the Athenian Republic:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilization has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence.

From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance,
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency,
from complacency to apathy,
from apathy to dependency,
from dependence back into bondage."


If the 90s were all about apathy it's dead clear where we're headed. My take, if they're going to do somewhat about violence, at least give us our sex back. :p

* not so much funny as interesting, really.

Re:Max?

[fermion]

Turning off the TV is what everyone wants to prevent.

TV is the perfect medium. It passively places the rabble in a harmless state without the negative effects of other methods such as alcohol. Such pacification is a critical part of social control.

TV allows the elite to clearly define the norms and customs of said rabble and set the appropriate expectations. This means that every person in America knows that he or she must consume. It means that every person in America has a common cultural basis.

TV clearly presents people in similar economic and social situations as the rabble, but with better stuff. This implies that the lack of stuff is caused by some personal defect, and not the fact that your job pays nothing. Friends was brilliant in this regard, convincing gullible young adults that life is good and good things could be had even if the means to pay for them was non existent

Remember that the one mistake Bradbury made in Fahrenheit 451 was the notion that we would need walls of TVs for social control. We now know that a single set will do the job. We now have confirmation that people will go into debt to acquire this means of social control.

Re:Max?

[pgnas]

...who are too stupid to use "The V Chip" that congress mandated be included in all new TV sets.

Can I puke now? It's always about money or power. In addition, when are we going to learn that we are incapable of making decisions on our own about our own lives, they must be made for us through legislation. If they were not made for us, how would they justify their existance. There are enough laws right now for us to be on auto-pilot for the next 50 years, I suspect we would avoid anarchy during that time, wouldn't you?

The problem is that there are way too many politicians with way too much time on their hands generating noithing but worthless legislation and mandates. If you think this statement is far-fetched, please turn on CSPAN for about 8 hours (if you can take it), I garauntee you will be fighting to keep your eyes open and holding your mouth in order to fight back the vomit.

I can't think of anything worse than a fat, disconnected (from reality), slick talking politician mandating how I should live my life because I am incapable of making my own decisions, however, my intellect appears to be fully in tact when I am filling out 10,000 tax forms each year and making out the check to pay their salaries (that they more than likely voted to increase).

Just shut up and keep paying, just keep paying, after all bubba needs a new yacht and house in kennebunkport.

Cable/Satilite

[Ryan Stortz]

Hey, I thought Cable and Satelite were more or less restriction free on what they can broadcast. They just do some self censoring. It works now, why mess with a good thing?

Re:Cable/Satilite

[Anonymous Coward]

It works now, why mess with a good thing?

Because there's still violence and in the world, and we all know the world was a vast utopia of love and understanding before TV.
The world is so evil today because the morals of the elite few has not been crammed down everyone's throats enough! Down with free speech, it only breeds violence!

Yeah, that was sarcasm for those who haven't realised it.

I agree with the FCC...

[havaloc]

there isn't enough violence for me and we need to regulate it to get more.

They've also looked into censoring web broadcasts

[beee]

There was a report issued in 2002 to determine whether the FCC had jurisdiction over webcasts (internet TV and the like) and whether or not their current TV regulations would apply. It's pretty interesting and their conclusions are somewhat alarming (especially if you oppose regulation on the internet), but it appears not much came of it. You can read the report here: DOC, PDF, or TXT.

Regulation?

[Carnildo]

I'll shoot the next guy who tries to tell me that violence on TV is a bad thing!

Re:Regulation?

[Alsee]

I'll shoot the next guy who tries to tell me that violence on TV is a bad thing!

Just wondering, are you also planning on fucking the next guy who tries to tell you that sex on TV is a bad thing?

-

Equalising...

[cujo_1111]

Finally they are trying to equalise their violence vs nudity vs language levels, going the wrong way though.

How is it that in the US you can see as many shootings as you want on TV bvut as soon as someone says fuck or bares a breast, the loonies go nuts... I thought seeing people getting killed would harm a kid more than seeing a breast or two.

Re:Equalising...

[Creepy Crawler]

Go watch 60's and 70's western shows.

A little racy (for their time), but you see what 'land rights' are, how to deal with squatters, and other problems.. You shoot em. Go watch an episode of Bonanza, there's almost guaranteed someone to die. By gunshot, poisons, natural causes, starvation...

You're also taught respect, courage, and humility. You were also taught how to be a man (in some aspects). And I dont mean this pig-like "go get me a beer, wench" type.. but someone who stands up for what they believe in.

Anything on TV now has lost what shred of worthiness it once had. Dont go saying im romanticising about the past.. Tell me that "YOURE FIRED", Big Brother, or some other tipe show on now has anything worth listening?

Re:Equalising...

[Izago909]

You are forgetting that America was founded by prudes. For Gods sake, the Brittish thought they were too uptight.

Re:Equalising...

[cujo_1111]

However, almost every single teenager in the world is a raging ball of hormones, and seeing T&A on TV only makes them hornier.

In other words, lots of kids will replicate sexual behaviour they see in movies and on TV, but not many will replicate the violent behaviour they observe.

Have you seen the nudity that is broadcast in a lot of European countries? They show breasts in commercials, do they have a massive teenage pregnancy problem? No they don't.

Do you think that it could be possible that restricting nudity could have the opposite effect in controlling teenage pregnancies?

Re:Equalising...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a theory about why violence is deemed "OK" but sex is not.

I have a theory too: the Americans are just nuts.

Re:Equalising...

[gwalla]

To be historically accurate, the American attitudes most often called "puritanical" actually had their origin much later, in the Victorian era. Puritanism itself was not, ultimately, that influential in American life--it'd been basically drowned out by secular elements before the Revolutionary War.

Re:Equalising...

[Coryoth]

However, almost every single teenager in the world is a raging ball of hormones, and seeing T&A on TV only makes them hornier.

In other words, lots of kids will replicate sexual behaviour they see in movies and on TV, but not many will replicate the violent behaviour they observe.

Which is interesting really. Teens will "replicate the sexual behaviour they see". Now just where do you think they'll see this sexual behaviour? In a more open society that didn't cringe at every minor sighting of breast and keep everything repressed (like, say, Europe) they might see sexual behaviour treated openly and honestly. In a prudish society that tries to hide everything away from the poor children they'll probably have to resort to porn to see much sexual behaviour.

Hmm, open honest representations, or porn... I wonder which is better to have them trying to replicate?

It's worth noting that despite their much more open attitudes toward sex Europe has a lower rate of teen pregnancy than the US.

Jedidiah.

Re:Equalising...

[killjoe]

Unfortunately the american psyche got burned with that image of what "being a man" was. Mainly it meant that you killed people and resorted to violence immediately. Is there an episode of any show from the 60s and seventies which did not involve fights and violence? Well maybe but they are pretty rare.

It's remarkable to me how this worwhip of violence and defining your manhood by how many people you hurt and kill permeated our society to such level that we can't seem to go five years without dropping bombs on somebody or another.

I'd trade violence for sex on TV anyday ...

[Bryan Ischo]

... for me and for my kids. Better yet, don't censor the airwaves at all, just require a very thorough, detailed, and precise rating system, and enforce it. Then parents can decide what is suitable for themselves to view as well as their children, and nobody needs to step on anyone else's right to broadcast what they want or watch what they want.

Also, I think that any program whose audience is intended to be children, should not be allowed to have commercials. This would protect kids from commercial interests and would have the side benefit of reducing the amount of insipid commercial programming that wastes kids' time and rots their brains and bodies (because producing such programming would no longer be profitable, and all that kids would be left with would be educational programming on PBS).

Of course, there's nothing more important than responsible parenting, and that should be the first line of defense for children. But just because we want parents to be responsible doesn't mean that we shouldn't give them all the tools possible to be such, and provide as much of a safety net as possible for those kids whose parents are not responsible.

Re:I'd trade violence for sex on TV anyday ...

[LiquidMind]

having moved to the states from germany, i was amazed at how the violence to sex content ratio is so backwards. i remember watching a commercial during germany's prime-time tv shows, and they'd advertise some shampoo where you'd see the lady bare-chested and everything....and it wasn't a big deal.
i think people are very hard-up about anything regarding sex in this country. remember that nipple slip during the supperbowl? wow, mothers of America were yelling bloody murder! i read some email that was sent to CNN from a concerned mother who stated that her child's life will now forever be changed because of that scene.
I'm not surprised that we see so many sex-related crimes in this country, it seems that people have been so shunned from sex while they were growing up, that when they're old enough to do whatever they want, they go all psycho....
I honestly think that teaching your kids about sex and showing them that it's a very natural part of human life is not a bad thing (TM).

Re:I'd trade violence for sex on TV anyday ...

[Triumph The Insult C]

Better yet, don't censor the airwaves at all, just require a very thorough, detailed, and precise rating system, and enforce it.

NO! This is the wrong approach. The gov't should not do any of this. The FCC should be there to make sure Company A's radio freqs don't mess with Company B's radio freqs, and end there.

The gov't saying what's wrong and what's right, what's too sexually explicit and what's not, is completely wrong.

If soccer mom's are afraid that their kid might see something bad on TV, they can: A) don't let the kid watch TV or B) let the kid watch and explain it was wrong. having the gov't rate what is right and wrong is just flat-out wrong. what's next? the FCC says a Christian radio show isn't indecent, but a Jewish one is?

Keeping children safe is the responsibility of the parent, not the gov't.

Re:I'd trade violence for sex on TV anyday ...

[Denyer]

i read some email that was sent to CNN from a concerned mother who stated that her child's life will now forever be changed because of that scene.

I assume she either never breastfed (in itself lacking wisdom) or is simply a fucking hypocrite.

Come to think of it, families are evidence of sex. Perhaps we should ban those on TV, too.

Its an election year

[gad_zuki!]

Expect more of this to fire up the GOP base and conservative democrats.

I mean, how many people are going to be upset at a politician who claims "I fought to clean up violent media."

Its a shame most people don't see that as meaning, "I'm big on censorship."

Re:Its an election year

[Abcd1234]

First of all, it ain't up to the state to protect the children from idiot parenting. Otherwise, most of the children in middle class homes would probably taken away from their parents due to neglect.

Second, censorship is never the right solution. The parents should have the right to control what their children can and can't watch, while still being able to watch things *they're* interested in. Hell, technology can all but do this for them, anyway! It's called locking out channels. It's existed for years (or don't you watch the Simpsons?).

Thirdly, even if kids are watching a ton of violence, please, prove to me that it actually matters. I've seen plenty of studies which disprove any link between watching violent materials and commiting violent acts.

Fourthly, even if you want to try and censor violence, how do you define it? What about animated violence? What about live action "violence" where there is no blood? Or where there's only the "suggestion" of violence?

Fifthly, censorship is a dangerous, slippery slope, with questionable benefit. If we start censoring TV and video games, what next? When will they start censoring "inappropriate" books? Or music? After all, we need to "protect the children", lest we somehow damage society.

Personally, I'm a little tired of people trotting out the ol' "think of the children!" line every time they want to curb *my* rights.

Oh god

[Trikenstein]

I can see it now.

It'll be like 80's TV all over again.
Like the A-Team, where they expend 10K rounds of ammo, but no one ever gets hurt.
Or during a fist fight or HtH combat, the guys always land on soft cardboard.
And those god awful wimpy, mustache twirling, limp wristed villains they had back then.

Re:Oh god

[Triumph The Insult C]

you got a problem with the A-Team fool?

Maybe I am too European, but ...

[thomasj]

I find it more disturbing having my kids see guns on television than breasts.

But, ... I am from Europe.

Funny how...

[Transcendent]

...we used to make fun of other countries (like in the middle east) because of how their government censored the public.

Put another religious leader in the american government, and I guess we'll get the same result.

</politeness>

Why is the US so damn anal about nudity and violence? The mid east cuts off people's appendages on TV and normal public, Europe had free nudity on TV and on the beaches (Canadain women can even walk around topless)... but damned if someone curses or shows a little leg on my good ol' American Television!

The FCC should do its job instead of that

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

They should regulate the media industry. Prevent, instead of encourage, media consolidation. Regulate if/how media businesses should be owned by corporations, and ensure said corps don't dictate the media outlet's line. And most of all, they should prevent its CEO (the chief regulator) to have such close tie with a member of a government that demonstrably wants a total secrecy and government-approved only press releases.

Instead of that, they pretend to be working on censoring nudity and violence on TV, which is a comparatively mundane and non-important, and pretend to be working on stuff that way. In reality, they just divert the public's attention from the real issues they're not working on, a method not unlike what Joseph Goebbels was advocating.

The V-Chip

[stubear]

This is a great use for the V-Chip, the much maligned device that would be put in all televisions and allow parents to censor what shows their kids could watch and let others watch whatever the hell they want. However, thanks to over reactive "experts", the V-Chip was crucified as being a tool of government sanctioned censorship of our airwaves, ignoring the fact that it's actually self censorship. I say bring the V-Chip back and establish a consistent rating system for all television shows to use.

Re:The V-Chip

[Bryan Ischo]

Very true, but the V-Chip system is pretty weak.

I work for TiVo and I implemented most of the "parental controls" functionality present in TiVo software. I can attest to the fact that V-Chip ratings are pretty hit-and-miss: some networks use them consistently, some don't. It's much worse with digital over-the-air broadcasts: even though the FCC has more control over over-the-air broadcasts, all the stations that I have seen very, very rarely broadcast ratings in their PSIP data.

I am all for the V-Chip system because it gives parents the ability to restrict their kids viewing without actually controlling the content itself (V-Chip ratings simply augment the content and make it easier to determine ahead of time if the content is acceptable for a child to watch).

But, I think that V-Chip ratings should be *much* more detailed, precise, and most importantly, UNIVERSALLY ENFORCED. And I think that the FCC should have the responsibility and power to force all broadcasters to very thoroughly and accurately rate their broadcasts.

Iraq coverage?

[raistphrk]

What, does this mean that we won't be able to hear about the actual events that occur in Iraq, since that's too violent for our poor, virgin American ears and eyes?

The problem with this policy is that it ignores the fact that the world is a violent place. Maybe things aren't so bad out by the FCC building in DC, but if the FCC took a stroll out through the city of DC alone at night, they'd probably get mugged. If they meandered through the streets of Darfur in Sudan, they'd get shot. If they stepped out into the neighborhoods of Fallujah, they'd be blown up.

The world isn't violent because of what's on TV or the Internet. The world is a violent place because people can't get it through their damn head that maybe - JUST MAYBE - if we all started to respect one another and chill out occasionally, we'd live in a happier place. But no. Wars and gang shootings aren't happening because of human frailty, selfishness, or obstinance. No. It's because some guy got shot on network TV last night.

Re:Iraq coverage?

[raistphrk]

Damn near every network - including allegedly liberal networks like CNN - peddled the government propaganda to the American public without so much as a question during the Iraq conflict. The first "sensitive" footage about Iraq that hit the airwaves didn't come up until well after the invasion was over.

I'm glad that CBS had the cajones to break the Abu Gharib prison scandal. If they hadn't reported it, the public would've never heard about it.

I keep hearing conservative criticism that all the coverage of the war is negative, and then I shake my head in disgust. After World War II, official statistics report that 0 Americans died during the reconstruction and aftermath in Germany. However, numerous reports have been floating around for years that contradict these numbers. Why did "0" Americans die in the aftermath of World War II? Because the US government decided not to report those numbers to the American public.

Flash forward to Vietnam. If the press hadn't been in Vietnam, how many American deaths would've been reported?

I'll give you a hint: NOT MANY.

War is heartless. I consider it the duty of the press to make that reality known. People die. Many people. Families are left broken and in pain. But if the government doesn't have to tell us that, why would it?

I want to hear the news. I want to know if 900 or 1,000 or 5,000 soldiers and marines died in Iraq. If the media won't report that these people died, we'll never know. Their memory will be forgotten, and the public will see little but through rose-colored lenses.

I want to see the harsh realities. Those realities are news. Refusing to show "sensitive" things doesn't give us news - it gives us dillusion. And dillusion brings us little security.

I want American soldiers and marines who die in Iraq to be known by their names - not as Anonymous Cowards.

Re:Why won't they... ?

[raistphrk]

Maybe instead of flipping out about the content of programs on TV, we should teach our children to respect one another? Jesus didn't waste his type chastizing the prostitutes; he taught people the importance of mutual respect and understanding.

If we teach our kids that getting a tax break is more important than sacrificing a little to help those who are not as lucky as ourselves, our kids are going to turn out to be MUCH worse than kids who watch "trash" on television - our kids are going to be selfish, callous, and uncompassionate. And I worry quite a bit more about the callous and greedy than I do about the kids who like watching action films.

Teach your children the value of other people. The greed and selfishness I see in the world today is far more indecent than anything I see on television.

Why HBO rocks, and I want to live on Mars

[Shihar]

I say take care of your own damned kids and leave me alone. I am an adult, I don't want a fucking V-chip in my TV and I don't want the FCC to decide what program I can and can not watch. The networks are already squeamish enough about what they show, I don't need the FCC to kill entirely kill any hope for a TV show being gritty.

One reason why I love HBO is because they flip the bird to censorship and guess what? Every single year they rake in the awards for their programming. Censorship kills intelligent programming. Why the hell can't the government get the fuck out of my TV, out of my house, and stop punishing me because some parent is too fucking stupid to take care of their own kid?

Is your kid a little shit who likes to watch bad things behind your back and you are unable to control the little brat? Here is a solution, throw out your fucking TV or lock it in your room. I am so fucking pissed at how much I have to pay for other people's stupidity these days. I can't fucking smoke pot, can't watch violent/sexual TV, my fucking city closes at 2 am (hurray Boston curfew laws!), the rave seen as all been shut down in my area, I can't buy liquor at a bar past 1 am (another hurray for Boston's blue light laws!), violent video games are on the decline because Lieberman takes every chance he can get to threaten the industry, I can't gamble, and I can't even find an all night dinner (one more cheer for Boston curfew laws!) all because somewhere someone out there is too fucking stupid to handle these 'major' responsibilities. I am pissed and I am sick of seeing my liberties being slowly sucked away because some dumbass out there needs the government to protect themselves from themselves or watch their fucking kids.

So let me state it clearly. If you can't take care of yourself or your kids, please do me a favor and go fuck yourself. Don't beg the government to save you from your own incompetence at life. Go move to a nation that gets off on baby sitting its citizens or just purge your worthless genes from the pool. If you can take care of yourself, but really want to help other people take care of themselves, for fucks sake, stop being such a whiny little hypocritical bitch, get off your ass, and go help. Don't beg the government to do the work you want done for you. Want to keep kids from watching violent TV? Get off your fucking ass, make the rounds in your neighborhood and tell parents how to raise their kids. Someone might even listen to. Hell, offer to baby sit the little shits 24/7 and make sure the job gets done right. Just stay the fuck away from me.

Honestly, if we start flinging rockets to mars or asteroids I'll sign up and be the first guy to start a new world. Maybe then in my pressurized habitat in the middle of a barren wasteland I can enjoy some nice violent and sexual explicitly TV in peace.

Regulation = Censorship

[Shihar]

Regulation absolutely does equal censorship. If government controls dictate that certain types of programming can't be on until after 9 P.M. that IS censorship. If the FCC fines NBC (or whoever) because someone flops a boob around on TV, that IS censorship. Yes, even a mandated rating system is censorship is because it means that you can't show something unless you jump through a certain hoop. If you are not allowed to show something unless the government reviews it first, that, my friend, is without a doubt censorship. You can not 'regulate' speech without censoring.

As to your kids, take some fucking control or don't complain. I am sorry you don't want to be a 'control freak' but the minor inconvenience of knowing what your kids are watching and/or setting up some parental locks is worth censorship of the rest of the population can see. I honestly don't give a damn about your kids and am at a loss as to why you think it makes any sort of sense that the rest of the population should have to endure censorship of what they can view because you don't want your kids to think you are a mean Daddy/Mommy.

I find abhorrent that people think it is okay to use the force of the government to get around being 'control freaks' with their children. This same stupid line of reasoning would dictate that the Internet needs to be controlled by the government because your kids might run into a porn site and you don't want to be a 'control freak' that uses a filter on your computer. Hell, this line of reasoning says that people shouldn't be allowed to swear in public or talk about sex on the streets because your kid might overhear it, and you really don't want to have to be a 'control freak' and always be with your kids to protect them from such vile behavior.

Parents need to take responsibility for themselves and their damned kids. Don't want your kids to see violence or sex on TV? Lock out all channels but PBS and Discovery (although, be careful, god forbid they learn about science of sex through the Discovery channel). Any modern TV can do this simply and easily. Still paranoid PBS might do a special on sexual reproduction or violence, throw away the damn TV. Whatever the case, I, an adult without kids, shouldn't have to suffer because you are manically trying to protect your kids from depictions of sex and violence, yet are too lazy to put in the effort to shield your kids from the fact that violence exists and most adults not only have sex, but have it often.

If you want to shove puritan values down your kids throats yet are too lazy to actually put in the effort to do it, do everyone a favor and don't breed.

Reader beware

[Anonymous Coward]

That quote seems to be fictitious.

political judo

[Doc Ruby]

Congress will regulate the TV violence display choices for everyone, which will have wide support from lazy parents. Then, when they apply the same rules to sex, there will be momentum, and it will be easy. Then, when they apply the same rules to "dangerous ideas", it won't be so hard. Then it doesn't matter what they do.

Re:At the risk of a Troll

[ultranova]

In this day in age the US is still very much not an apathetic player in the game.

All the examples you've given show the US, as a single entity, being active. However, that was not the point. It's the apathy/activity of the people that decide the fate of democracy (and what the parent was referring to).

Democracy is based on the rulers being accountable to the ones being ruled. This accountability can only happen if the subjects are active - passive subjects let their government stay in power even after it screws up, basically allowing it unlimited power. Because of this, the ones in power want their subjects to remain passive. TV is a tool for this passification. That was the argument.

Conspiracy theories of corporate overlords and Saudi families aside

"Conspiracy" refers to some kind of secret plot, but the contributions from corporations to US politicians are public knowledge, available from, for example Opensecrets.org, so unless you think that the donating corporations are stupid enough to continuously spend money for no gain (which they propably aren't - they wouldn't have gotten big if they were), I'd say those theories are statements of facts.