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FCC Report - TV Violence Should be Regulated
tanman writes "CNN reports that a draft FCC report circulating on Capitol Hill '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' The article goes on to quote from studies showing a link between violent imagery and violence in life, and discusses the 'huge grey areas' that could result from ill-defined concepts of excessive violence." Government as Nanny, or cracking down on an excessive entertainment culture? Which side of this do you find yourself on?
I think I'd prefer the gratuitous sexuality. That's way more fun than violence.
Gratuitous, horrific violence is OK, just as long as you don't say any naughty words!
I believe this is fairly common in Europe. I remember movies like Red Dawn and one of the Rocky pictures either being forbidden or having to be re-edited for viewing in Germany.
I've always found it strange that the U.S. has such conflicted a conflicted attitude towards sex, with numerous "morals" laws and restrictions, yet a massive hard- and soft-porn industry. Contrast that with the pretty much "anything goes" attitude towards violence which the American public seems to revel in.
I don't mind them limiting the hours it can be shown, but I would have a problem with them trying to ban it totally. As is, I refuse to watch a lot of television because of the levels of violence. I just don't want to see that stuff and don't find it entertaining at all.
For the same reasons I won't go watch movies like Saw or Hannibal Rising. Silence of the Lambs was good, but Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising were nothing more than an excuse to see how disturbing they could get.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'd say that there needs to be some censorship in this area, but it needs to be well defined like it is here in the UK. You can show violence, sex and whatever else you like AFTER 9pm, up until 9pm you have to keep it tame. This means people can still show anything they like but parents have a fairly good idea of what will be involved after the watershed (9pm).
I like muppets.
Stop regulating content completely and let parents do the regulating with parental control settings that are on pretty much every digital cable box nowdays.
that's rubbish. tv violence has nothing to do with real life violence. the source of violence is bad parenting. instead of wasting all this money they should've given it to someone who could use it to really solve this problem, like social service or schools.
USians demand right for ultra-violence in media, get upset about female anatomy being shown (e.g. Janet Jackson's boob on tv). Europeans get upset about kids getting exposed to violence (big fuss in the UK at the moment because 5 teenagers got shot dead in the country in the last month, people really worried about level of violence) but happy with nudity... go round France, Italy etc and there will be billboards by the side of the road with topless models advertising perfume etc.
:-)
mmm... your choice
they could rule that any violence shown on TV must be absolutely realistic.
:-)
Not the idiotic "bang, you're dead" type "violence" that you see all day long in gangster films and the like.
No, they would have to show the real thing - where someone who is shot takes quite a long time to die, and does so under very disconcerting circumstances.
My guess is that people would turn off their TV sets rather than watch something like that. And they would complain on their own accord - "think of the children!", but this time it would be a grassroots thing, rather than something which is being mandated from the top.
And to boot, having seen such scenes would probably make children a lot more squeamish about playing with toy guns and "shooting" people as well...
Or perhaps I'm still too optimistic about people in general - perhaps doing something like that would not achieve anything, except turning the nation's children into hardened psychopaths much faster than they are now...
A.
The FCC found one study that gives them evidence to extend their authority, ignore the Constitution, and further entrench the government in our lives. What a surprise. Really, for an organization that was initially designed to de-conflict the radio spectrum, the FCC sure has expanded. Police powers are supposed to be left to the states. The federal government is intruding on their power and citizens' rights. If its so bad, parents should do their job and not let kids watch it. If its so bad, then no one will watch it, and they will put on other programming. The thing is, people are watching it, and its what people want. Let me make my own decisions, and stop trying to be my parent. That's not the purpose of government. Defend me from the big, bad media companies, please, cause I don't have the common sense to turn off the TV and read a book.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Well that's one way to get the Iraq war out of the media before the next election, ban TV coverage under a "think of the children" violence clause.
not adults. So keep your knee-jerks in check. You will get to see your gore, only late at night.
I'm a grown-up man who has watched action movies all my life, and I am getting pretty sick of the violence. It sometimes seems like directors try to one-up each other with titillating depictions of evil and suffering.
I'm pretty sure mankind doesn't have an innate NEED to hurt each other despite what some psychologists hypothesized a hundred years ago - rather that it is a quick problem-"solving" (ego-scratching) solution that many stick to - and I'm pretty sure that if you expose people to violence all their lives they will become violent. Monkey see, monkey do.
Another interesting thing is that in Sweden we have only a fraction of the level of violent crimes as compared to USA. I don't think we are by nature a more docile people, it's rather probably the result of a lack of handguns and generations of limited media violence. And we haven't had a war in 200 years.
Fuck the children [not literally], I pay for cable not them. If cable/tv/whatever is bad for them, then make a law banning them from watching TV.
Why should I be left with shite "family oriented" programming when I'm the one paying the damn bill?
When 6 yr olds start paying for cable maybe then we should consider what's in their best interests.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching'
Ten, fifteen years ago I might have agreed with this. But we have TV ratings now, and we have V-Chips that can cut off content based on that rating. So long as the ratings accurately describe potentially objectionable content in a program, of what possible use is rescheduling it as well?
I can also foresee some sort of chilling effect: I seem to be under the impression that, after hours, broadcast television can show practically anything up to hardcore pornography, but even after midnight you'd be hard pressed to find a bare female breast, and then only on basic cable or some European import on PBS. Of course, I can agree that perhaps we do want a chilling effect on violence, but there's still the First Amendment and all.
Television exists to stuff the viewer's eyesockets with advertising. The programming content serves to keep your eyes "glued" for the advertising.
There's little of value on television that one couldn't learn more profoundly by going to the library, reading an encyclopedia article, talking to someone knowledgeable, taking a walk, or just reflecting. And anything that television does teach is likely not as worthwhile as any of these alternatives.
Television being what it is (consumer hypnosis, not education), it's hard not to conclude that television is really meant to be a significant challenge on the obstacle course preventing serious thinking (and political action) in this brave new world.
Bad government and multinational corporations thank you for watching.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
No violence, no shooting, no riot scenes? I guess the 6pm news will have to be delayed until 9pm then?
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
I second this. This is the reason that soldiers train shooting at human shaped silhouettes. This habituates soldiers to fire at human shaped things rather than at abstract bullseye. This way there is less hesitation when the time comes to do it for real.
I also think that it's funny that if you do anything under the guise of "news", you've got a free pass. Dateline, 20/20, etc, show the most graphic shit on TV but it's OK because they're "news" programs. Ick.
You'll have that sometimes...
In an age of personal un-responsibility Americans have seemingly abdicated their will to use the most obvious control....the bloody OFF switch on the TV.
Of course this would mean losing the electronic baby-sitter so many have come to rely on.
Geez! What's a parent to do?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Yeah, since I started playing Natural Selection I sometimes find myself fighting the urge to drop from the ceiling and parasite, chomp, chomp someone.
Why do I say that ? Well remmember the Roman ? As far as I know death & blood were not faked. And somehow I doubt people were forced to watch, or stopped watching in disgust. Look at when there is an accident the number of passerby which comes and watch. Usually what slow down traffic is less the clown which have a look than the accident itself (especially true on 3 or 4 lanes freeway). The majority, if not all people, have this morbid streak to look at the misery of other and think "well at least that was not me". Make it real and people will not only be even more desenstivized to true violence, but they might even STARTS to enjoy it...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Alright, I haven't read all the comments, so I hope I'm not just repeating what someone else says (I doubt it, the quality of posts around here has been weak for a while) I'm normally all for libertarianism, the government should stay the hell out of how I live my life, until it starts affecting the lives of other. But I think I have to admit that I might side with the "censorship" side of things on this one. Sadly, WAY too many people use TV to babysit, and I really don't see why we need to highlight violence when there's healthier and, well I guess, better things to highlight with the power TV has. Sex and love and doing what you can to help your fellow man aren't intrinsically void of good plots, and they can certainly lead to great ideas and stories that could help guide the impressionable to make our nations really great again. It's a shame that the people who come up with the drivel on TV, with the real power of thought-control they have, waste it on the crap that's fed to us. There are a few smart shows out there, but most of it just helps feed negative messages to the viewers, feeds that consumerist need, and leads to a wasteful life. If suggestions (sadly in the form of legal controls) from the government can help reduce negative images and (hopefully) encourage more positive thoughts in viewers then I'm forced to agree with their doing so. But of course this "censorship" will likely be politically motivated in some way or another and won't serve any purpose but that of the people who want to enact such a law, and it'll just further fuck up an already sick nation. I guess that's the reason I'm against governments sticking their grubby hands in places they shouldn't be.
The unexamined life is not worth living
the 9pm watershed is outdated when we have such a wide range of broadcasts. cable satellite. The simplest solution with digital broadcasts woiuld be an age rating flag.
let the user set the level they want to recieve and blank the channel when it exceeds thier set rating.
Parents would appreciate the ability to keep thier tv kidsafe when they want and allow the rest of us access to what we want to watch when we want to watch it.
some of us adults have to be up early in the morning, a 9 oclock watershed means limiting our viewing to family safe content.
Do you really want your tv limited to broadcasting quiz shows sitcoms and soaps before 9 so called family entertainment?
of course kidsafe tv is open to the parents disabling it entirely it would also entail parents buying into the scheme (quite literally as it would require some new hardware). Of course this would mean an end to our tv regulators deciding what is suitable for us to see.
It also makes it possible to block tv licience funded broadcasts and make the tv licience opt in for viewers.
Of course self-regulation wouldnt be acceptable to the current regulators, would it .
extending this idea might allow users to block particular broadcasts. For example anything featuring michael barrymore or noel edmonds or chris moyles or janet street porter. They don't necessarily break any standards of decency but i'd rather not have them in my living room.
actually now this does present the real dilema. If a broadcaster flags a show as in a particular catagory you then are trusting that broadcaster to always be right. Thats the problem with giving them the control of censorship of your viewing.
maybe the real solution is the off button and parents taking responsibility for thier choice of what is suitable for thier kids to see.
I do like the idea of perhaps dynamic self censorship.
pick what offends you and have a database of the schedules flagging what you want or don't want to see.
maybe i just need to press the channel change on the remote.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Well, the basic fact is this. If there is violent content on TV or a movie, something really gross, parents have no qualms about engaging in a conversation with their kids and telling them the other side of the story and letting the kids know the right from wrong when it comes to violence. But most parents are very uncomfortable talking about sex to their kids and providing them with a balanced picture. In a ad-supported medium like TV they tend to prefer censorship. If they have to pay for content, like they do for print magazines or books, they usually dont bother. So it is easy to snicker at the parents and the American public for tolerating heavy doeses of violence and flipping out at the first wardrobe malfunction. But the fundamental cause is that there is not enough paid, ad free alternatives to TV. If that becomes possible, GoogleTV or AppleTV or Akimbo service or whatever, the demand for censorship will vanish. [Typing without my contacts. Please forgive typos.]
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Sex is something very common, a part of a _normal_ life. Violence is not! A 12 year old can see someone's head being blown off but 'Oh my god! Shield them from seeing someone's genitalia on TV."
I don't advocate showing pornography to children, but I think they should be able the see the statue of David. I just don't understand why for so long, violence was accepted, but sex was not.
If I had to choose one or the other, I would accept the display of sexuality to children than the display of violence.
I grew up in Eastern Europe, and I have to say that when coming to U.S. I was shocked of how sexually repressed this country it. There was a story in the news how a theatre changed the title of the 'Vagina Monologues' to the 'Hooha Monologues' -- WTF!?
A vagina is a 'hoohaa' now, because a grandmother didn't want to tell her granddaughter who is old enough to read what a vigina is? Well, what the hell is a hoohaa then?
There is a reason why there are so many substitute words for female genitalia in English (hoohaa, pussy, box, coochie, hole, snatch, slot, nooch, fanny -- just a couple I could thin of right now.) This is direct result of sexual repression.
Also, a couple of years ago, when 'March of the Penguins' was in the movie theatres, I was watching it with my wife and there was couple with their young (6-7 year old ) daughter. There is a scene in the movie when the penguins are mating. They were not showing close up of genitals or anything like that. The mother got up, yanked the daughter by her hand and dragged her out. The girl didn't quite understand what to make of her mother's reaction, she got scared and started crying. Then they came back later, just in time to watch the penguin baby chicks die because their parents couldn't take care of them. I thought, 'how sad', that poor girl...
At the same time. This is one of the most violent countries in the world. It is not because of the guns, it's irrelevant, people own guns in other countries but the don't necessarily shoot each ther with them.
And then there is the problem with violent video games. Children in Europe play violent video games. I love Doom, Quake and all of the other ones. But those children do not go and shoot each other as much as the American children. It is as if we cannot simply blaim ourselves, and our culture for disasters like Columbine, we have to blaim video games, or some other things that we can all point a finger to.
Sorry for the rant. Hey if Linus can have a nice 'healhty' rant at the GNOME desktop, so can I at the American society
You know, the ones who talk about Fox News' sacred right to broadcast propaganda and call it news?
You know, the sacred right they've had since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in the last decade or so?
When you talk about government regulating what they say on TV, some Republicans trot out the constitution like a prayer rug and wave it all around in the air. Their Speech Is Free. How dare the government regulate the media.
(I mean, the government has to decide who can broadcast. And it can only pick a few lucky people, and everyone else can't broadcast on pain of huge penalties.)
(But aside from that, those lucky few should be able to say whatever they want on TV. If you don't like it, print a newspaper.)
The Republicans said, Americans are smart. Americans are free. Americans can handle their own media without getting confused. They don't need anyone to look out for them. They choose what media to watch and what not to watch, and if they happen to see something not so cool when switching channels, oh, they can handle it.
And they are lying through their teeth. They don't really believe a word of that.
Their coming out to censor the media like this is how you can tell.
You're supposed to be able to take care of yourself when consuming the information that powers, oh, this entire democracy. But not be able to handle some violent or sexual imagery.
Megalomaniacal hypocrites.
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Sexual content and violence should be regulated by the government exactly the same, which is no regulation at all. I'll admit there are a couple of extremes which obviously need to be regulated, but in general this isn't something the government should concern itself with.
This however is an excellent idea, let the users regulate themselves by adding an age flag in the transmission. Regulation such as that suggested by the report only adds another annoyance factor to a medium which is already plagued by them.
Perfect is the enemy of done.
heaven forbid that you should do things for the good of all.
Defending our rights against government encroachment is one of the things that we do for the good of all.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I do agree, though, that a set of flags in digital broadcast would be good. On the back of DVD and video boxes, you have the amount of violence, sex, and strong language listed. It would be possible to add corresponding flags to the digital TV stream and allow people to install their own filters. If you have it set with a sufficiently fine granularity (maybe put it in the frame header) then something like a TiVo could even re-edit the stream for you. It made me laugh when I was last in America how the sound track on films would suddenly cut out for a second when someone swore, but this kind of thing would be possible on the client side with sensible metadata. If you're not watching something live, then it could even cut scenes where the sex or violence flags hit a certain threshold.
Interestingly, the DVD spec actually has a way of doing this already; you can create multiple paths through the same video footage. I believe it was designed for showing films with and without deleted scenes, but it could also be used to show a lower-rated edit of the same footage. To my knowledge, however, no DVDs have been produced that implement this.
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Government agency announces it should have exanded role, increased powers. Experts reportly shocked at this development.
Chris Mattern
It's funny you say that because I've always thought it was funny that you couldn't show a nipple on TV, but you could show a bomb going off and killing people in a crowded hospital or somebody getting shot.
I just watched the movie This Film is Not Yet Rated. Kirby Dick does an amazing job opening up a peephole into the MPAA. He reveals to the audience that there is no formal criteria for what makes a PG movie a PG movie, and what makes it different from a PG-13 or an R-rated movie. (Although he does a hilarious Flash-like animation that describes the obvious differences between the ratings, but to the MPAA, there is no formal, published criteria.) The only judges who determine what rating a movie gets are people hired by the MPAA to sit in a room and judge for themselves, without any rules or guidelines to follow whatsoever. What bugs the movie industry so much is that this "process" is kept a complete secret to everyone, including movie producers, outside the MPAA, and no one is "supposed" to know who is on this panel of raters (though Kirby Dick uses a private investigator to discover who is on the panel, and reveals that to the audience).
The documentary does a fantastic job as well exposing the double-standard between rating sex and rating violence. Here's an interesting fact taken from the movie: if the producers of a movie ask for the aid and equipment of the US armed forces, military commanders require their personal screening of the movie before it is allowed to be distributed. If they find any objectionable content which they determine sheds the military in a bad light, they'll demand the content be pulled or edited, less the movie never sees the light of day.
I guess there are reasons for why we encourage our kids to watch violence.
Good luck!
That is exactly correct. All such regulation is illegitimate; the 1st amendment to the constitution says "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" It doesn't say "except for violent or sexual expression", nor are there any constitutional amendments that say anything of the kind. The 1st amendment is directed at the federal government (which covers the FCC quite nicely) but also keep in mind that the 14th amendment is directly interpreted by the federal government, via the courts to mean that the bill of rights (amendments 1-10) applies to the states as well.
At the time, speech and print was all they had; generalizing to video is a no-brainer, if they'd thought you could send pictures from here to there without being burned at the stake. The idea translates exactly.
This is just one example of many where the US government has stepped far outside the hard boundaries that its constituting authority (the constitution itself) set. Keep in mind that any censorship law the government makes is completely illegitimate. There is no possible legitimacy for laws that directly violate the constitution's prohibitions without proper revision of the constitution, meaning, a constitutional convention covering the appropriate changes, and ratification of those changes.
Remember that a government that steps outside its constituting authority has only one authority left, that of force and coercion. That's not even similar to the claimed authority of a king; that is what forms the basis for a dictatorship.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I disagree with an age tag. Who's to say what's appropriate for a 12 year old or a 17 year old?
What I'd like to see is something similar to PICS. There are different categories. For example (from ICRA):
languagesexual, languageprofanity, languagemildexpletives, nuditygraphic, nuditymalegraphic, nudityfemalegraphic, nuditytopless, nuditybottoms, nuditysexualacts, nudityobscuredsexualacts, nuditysexualtouching, nuditykissing, nudityartistic, nudityeducational, nuditymedical, drugstobacco, drugsalcohol, drugsuse, gambling, weaponuse, intolerance, badexample, pgmaterial, violencerape, violencetohumans, violencetoanimals, violencetofantasy, violencekillinghumans, violencekillinganimals, violencekillingfantasy, violenceinjuryhumans, violenceinjuryanimals, violenceinjuryfantasy, violenceartisitic, violenceeducational, violencemedical, violencesports, violenceobjects
What could then be done is have the client (ie, the TV) have preconfigured settings based on the above ratings. Similar to G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, etc. However, the user would also be able to customize the settings to however they wish. That's the important difference. Ie, if they believe that "nuditysexualacts" and is fine for their 13 year old but not "violencerape", they could configure it that way.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
...
I do like the idea of perhaps dynamic self censorship.
pick what offends you and have a database of the schedules flagging what you want or don't want to see.
Its called a V chip here in the US. It picks up the rating flags the broadcasters send out with shows and can trigger a child-safety lock if it exceeds a level you set in the TVs configuration. To unlock it, you just use a PIN you set there too. Almost all cable boxes around here have the feature as well, and it was required by the FCC for all TVs over 13" made after Jan 1, 2000 to include them.
Tm
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I've been watching "The Simpsons" on DVD this chilly Saturday morning, and I think Bart Simpson said it best:
"Lisa, if you don't watch the violence, you'll never get desensitized to it."
As an American, my biggest beef with the way sex is handled on TV is the BLATANT hypocricy. A legal-aged (and IMO beautiful) woman like Janet Jackson has a nipple slip out, and we scream bloody murder. Then, we dress our best-looking 15 year olds like whores, and parade them around endlessly during prime time. Finally, we arrest and scorne any of those among us who dare to reach for the forbidden fruit.
Don't get me wrong- sex with kids is bad. But sex isn't. In fact, sex is how we got all these 15 year old in the first place. I'm not about to suggest that TV or video game violence is "rsponsible" for anything- unlike you, and your kids, it lacks free will. However, simply looking at the variety of violent acts among children, it is clear that something very bad is going on here.
If I had a daughter, I would prefer she stay at home, dressed in sweat pants and 40 pounds overweight. However, given the choice between buying her a box of condoms, and driving her to the emergency room, I'd rather bite the bullet and suffer a few minutes of embarrasment explaining how a "winky" works.
barack to the future?
How about regulating the violence perpetrated by the US government, by secret organizations funded by the US government and by the companies that build bombs, weapons and ammunition, then sell these things to governments and organizations all across the world. How about regulating that? How about putting an END to that?
I like that 'badexample' tag, and would use it. I'd like to see it expanded actually, as there are many different types of bad example being presented for consumption. The running insults that are present on SO many of today's kids shows really piss me off. These kids are seeing role-models engage in completely sociopathic behavior and it's presented at the preferred behavior... You know, "cool".
My kids watch exactly NO cartoon network, NO Disney, and not too much of anything besides PBS. Hell, not everything on PBS meets my standard, so it gets no play. I take my job raising my kids seriously, like I said before.
That being said, I've always thought that television censorship on the national level is degrading. I, unlike my children, am a full formed and functional adult, perfectly capable of making my own decisions. If someone else feels the need for censorship, perhaps because they do not feel capable of making their own decisions, well, they should probably just have someone make a program schedule for them and lock out all the other options. And for those who don't feel the need to take enough of an active part in their kid's lives to regulate their television watching habits, tough. You've had the orgasm, now take some responsibility for what you've done.
Sorry "Shawn is an Asshole" for turning my reply to you into a general rant, but hey, it happens.
This post is tagged: languagemildexpletives, pgmaterial
This post's production was tagged: languageprofanity, drugstobacco, intolerance, pgmaterial, nuditybottoms
Rather than requiring content filtering at the broadcaster or on the cable box, I support filtering on a per-child level. Parents should be able to purchase individually-tailored shock collars for their children which automatically activate whenever the child is exposed to non-parental-approved content or situations. By harnessing the power of the shock-averse 'natural intelligence' already guiding children, parents can sleep soundly knowing that their children are making every possible effort to avoid corrupting and immoral influences.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Ever try to 'hang out' at the local military base?
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
You would do well to follow your own advice, and to take this additional advice: read up some basic theology. It was not curiosity that was the reason for the Fall. Knowledge of Good and Evil implies the capability to act on either of them. Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise because they had gained the capability to do Evil, which is something that does not belong in Paradise, which is a realm of absolute Good.
God forbade the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge because it would disturb the balance of Paradise by introducing the knowledge of Evil. The reason for the prohibition was promptly validated by the fact that Adam and Eve started by lying about their act, denying that they had taken from the Tree and trying to place blame on others.
Apart from whether or not you believe this, only a deliberate misreading of the text and the exegesis done on it over the centuries could lead someone to state that mere curiosity led to the Fall. It didn't. Neither did mere disobience.
As for the resolution of this, this is why Christians believe Jesus' death leads to forgiveness for Original Sin: Jesus shows the ultimate Good, sacrificing yourself for others. The core tenet of Christianity is that by following his teachings and if need be his sacrifice, we renounce Evil and commit to Good. I see no refutation of the validity of independent thought in this. In fact, the demand that we consciously choose to do Good over Evil is in fact a validation of the worth of independent thought. One does not get saved by rote regurgitation of dogma; Jesus' attacks on the Farisees and the Judeans make this abundantly clear.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Have you actually watched 24 lately? This season, there's been quite a bit of veiled (and not-so-veiled) criticism about the administration taking away more and more rights of the people in the name of fighting terrorism. In fact, it seems like almost every episode they have some sort of commentary on this.
Call me when Jack tortures and/or kills someone who turns out to be innocent. Until then I wont be very impressed.
I study the neuroscience of aggression (if you're interested in that sort of thing: see my blog), and there are no studies to date showing a causative link between watching violence as a child and being violent as an adult. There seems to be strong correlative evidence to that end, but those studies are all so confounded and convoluted, they're hard (or impossible) to interpret and fit in with what we know about the underlying neurobiology.
I would be interested to see who did the 'unpublished study' since it has not yet reached the publication stage. If this is a real causative finding, it would fly in the face of a fair number of prominent and well-skilled researchers. Needless to say, I am very skeptical of this study (and the subsequent FCC action).