Slashdot Mirror
Tech Firms, Don't Fence Us In
Vitaly Friedman writes "A proposed broadcasting law by the European Commission that would regulate emerging media formats in the same way as traditional broadcasting companies draws fire from the companies who say they will be hurt by a one-size-fits-all mentality. From the article 'An alliance of companies, including ITV, Yahoo, Vodafone, Intel and Cisco Systems, warned that a European Commission proposal to impose rules for traditional broadcasters on new media providers could have "unintended consequences" and hurt investment.'"
Business week carrying this story. But it has a couple of snippets missing from the wired report:
1) Its not An alliance of companies, including ITV, Yahoo, Vodafone, Intel and Cisco Systems, warned that...., its an alliance of British companies (and British subsiduries of US companies)
2) The wired article makes no mention of what the actual rules are. From business week: Those rules include limits on hate speech, advertising and the kind of content that can be broadcast to children.
I'm not a big fan of censorship by any stretch of the imagination & I don't particularly support these rules - but I do find wired's reporting of this situation a little skewed (I wonder if wired thinks they'll be effected by this?)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
It looks like the problem may be one of enforcement. If these rules were in place, many of the companies listed would be responsible for policing content from bloggers or websites that they host, or be forced to implement age-verification systems around their own published content. None of this would be simple or cost-free, and I can see how it could potentially create a barrier for non-traditional media producers to publish their works: I'm sure that many ISPs would make things simple for themselves and just ban all their users from providing any downloadable video content full-stop.
Would it work like that? Maybe not, but that seems to be what these companies are afraid of.
Europe has a much more deeper level of product regulations than the US. This is done for consumer protection.
...
Typically the extra rules you see in place in Europe are intended to either:
- Minimize or eliminate the possible damage to consumers caused by long term exposure to something which is contained in a product.
- Make sure that the consumer is informed of the possible negative long term effects of something contained in a product so that the consumer can do an informed choice.
Although things that harm you immediatly are forbidden in products in both Europe and the US, the difference of regulations in both places makes it so that for things that (might) harm you in the longer run, in Europe one or more of the following will happen:
- Its outright forbidden to sell products that contain it.
- Its outright forbidden to sell products that contain it to certain age groups (typically children).
- Manufacturers are mandated by law to inform the consumers of the possible negative side-effects of their products.
The law in the US is much more lax when it comes to both controlling access to products with possible negative long term effects and making sure that consumers know of those risks before actually buying a product.
Thus for example, there is a very well defined set of which chemical additives which are allowed on processed food products.
Another example is that (non-encrypted) public televisions broadcasters cannot broadcast "young adult" content before a specific hour and/or have to rate their content according to a standard "appropriated for age" table and provide those ratings when advertising that content and immediately before broadcasting it.
(Rules for subscription and/or cable broadcasters are usually less strict)
Which brings us to the OP:
- European legislators want to apply to all kinds of public broadcasters the same consumer protection rules already in place for those broadcasters that openly broadcast television by means of radio waves.
Thus things like providing timelly and appropriated information about the adequacy of their content to be viewed by kids.
What's the problem with that?
They're still perfectly free to setup direct-to-consumer online shops that show porn or whatever - consenting adults still have access to whatever they want to see while those parents that don't want their kids to see porn shows can more easilly know what to let or not their kids see.
PS: Note that for all the "regulations" in Europe versus "self-policing" in the US, there was still no problem whatsover with seing Janet Jackson's tittie on the tele around here (compared with some shows one can see after a certain hour of the day, seing JJ's breast in the open was positivelly mild) while in the US most broadcasters self-censured themselfs. No treats for anyone which guesses which place is in practice more open