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FCC Mulling More Control For Electronic Media
A recent Notice of Inquiry from the FCC is looking for opinions on how the "evolving electronic media landscape" affects kids, and whether the FCC itself should have more regulatory control over such media. The full NOI (PDF) is available online. "FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski included a statement with the NOI in which he noted that 'twenty years ago, parents worried about one or two TV sets in the house,' while today, media choices are far more widespread for children, including videogames, which 'have become a prevalent entertainment source in millions of homes and a daily reality for millions of kids.'"
it's always "protect the children" I spent all of my childhood past the age of 8 online and did I get abducted? did I become a horrible person? no did I become much more resourceful and patient in understanding computers? yes did I learn? yes enough ideas without statistics I say
The worst problem with video games and things like that is the lower level of physical activity among the young.
Earlier there was the option to stay in and be bored or go out and face the elements. This day you go out on the net and there is no need for a garden, football or playing in the mud.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I agree 100%... The more "responsibility" the government takes, the less the parents will take. And IMHO that's the fundamental problem that has yet to be addressed... Fewer and fewer parents actually parenting and taking responsibility for their own children.
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Fuck you very much the FCC; fuck you very much for fining me. Five thousand bucks a fuck so I'm really out of luck: thats more than Heidi Fliess was charging me. So fuck you very much the FCC, for proving that free speech just isn't free. Clear Channel's a dear channel so Howard Stern must go. Attorney General Ashcroft doesn't like strong words and so. He's charging twice as much as all the drugs for Rush Limbo, so fuck you all so very much.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Ok, I've been looking but I don't see anywhere on the FCC website to actually give them feedback.
There is a war going on for your mind.
While the FCC thoroughly investigated Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, they allowed Clear Channel to buy up all the radio stations without even blinking. When Sirius and XM wanted to merge, they took years to decide whether strong competition against terrestrial radio should be allowed (Clear Channel and the NAB lobbied against the merger hoping both Sirius and XM would fail). The FCC is useless and should not be given more power.
Read the request for comments, and replace "electronic media" with "community playgrounds". You'll find that most of the comments still apply - they give children educational opportunities but come with a small risk of children being exposed to something inappropriate and run a very small risk of children being targeted by those who would do them harm.
Personally, I have a 7-year-old daughter, and the TV is relegated to the basement where it has no influence over our lives. Despite the fact that I am an acknowledged geek, my daughter is not on the Internet and won't be for a while yet. This has nothing to do with the dangers from strangers, but the negative influence electronic media have on the developing mind, and is based on a request from her school to minimize what they call "screen time".
Having said all that, this is a conscious choice I make for my daughter, because I feel it is in her best interests. I personally feel this is a conscious choice that every American family should make, and I'm a rather vocal proponent of "kill your television" (at least until the kids reach their teens and the major brain development is completed). I am NOT, repeat NOT in favor of giving the US Government the power to dictate this to every family. This should be a decision that every family makes on their own.
As to "protecting the children from inappropriate content", what "inappropriate content" are we protecting them from, exactly? As far as I'm concerned, the most damaging thing you can do to a young mind is fill them with violent conflict, because it takes a lot of time and emotion to process that conflict and understand it, and that's time better spent by the brain developing free play skills and engaging in creative activities. Are we afeared that a couple of titties or a wanker might permanently scar the them for life? That's nothing compared to the impact that commonly-accepted kids programs are already having. So if the FCC is looking to regulate this, they've already approved what is probably the LEAST appropriate content possible. Bus has left the station, folks, and the FCC missed it.
Make your own decisions for your own family. Don't allow the government to do it for you. This one's gotta go down. The government has no place dictating this.
Oh, and for you parents out there, I urge you to please consider "killing your television". Please. As a conscious and informed decision, not as a government mandate.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I don't want my internet to be as dull and uninteresting as broadcast TV (no nudity, no curse words). If you don't like your children seeing such things, change the channel, don't buy cable, install filtering software, don't let the kids use the computer unless you're there, and so on.
Or adopt a more-adult attitude or realizing your kids are going to be having sex someday. Now is as good a time as any to teach them about the birds and bees, and stop having a fit if they see a naked body.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If the children are secretly raping themselves, let's immediately put them in jail for raping children!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Why aren't parents being held responsible for censoring their own children? It's the parents the put the computer in their room in the first place. Why should the government have to control what kids have access to?
You think YOU had a dangerous childhood??
Hell, I grew up with no cell phones, my parents both worked, yet I came home to a house alone (when very young I walked 2 blocks to and from school), I played in the neighborhood with neighborhood kids, roamed all over (again without tracking and cell phones), I ran around in the woods with BB and pellet guns, we 'stole' wood from local houses being built to build makeshift skateboard ramps (and sometimes forts in the woods). Goodness, when we went to a mall, my parents would set up a meeting time and place, and we'd go our separate ways for 2-3 hours at a time, yes, I wondered around unsupervised?!?!? Yep, I dove off diving boards in swimming pools! I got dropped off to hang at the arcades for hours at a time. I had a pretty wide area to cover at any given time by walking, bicycling, skateboarding....while never wearing a helment.
Yep, it is amazing myself and my friends made it past puberty!! By today's scared standards of treating children, we should have all been killed by and accident, if not abducted, raped and killed first...and of course, our parents would have been arrested for child neglect.
Amazing we all made it to even see the dawn of the internet and video games with good graphics...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Can somebody explain to me some legal theory under which the FCC -- or the federal government, for that matter -- has any authority to regulate the content of videogames?
I understood the rationale behind regulating broadcasting. If stuff is going out over the public airwaves, then the public -- by proxy of their humble servants in the government -- should have power to oversee its contents, to ensure that broadcasts are of benefit to the general populace.
Videogames, last I checked, were not broadcast over the public airwaves. They are bought and sold as private transactions.
And before anybody says "commerce clause". . . I can see how that would enable the federal government to regulate or tax the sale of games across state lines, regardless of their content. But if they started evaluating the contents and discriminating between games, then that bumps up against the 1st Amendment.
Caveat: I am not a constitutional scholar. (However, some people who apparently *are* constitutional scholars seem to have appalling ignorance of, or disregard for, these issues.)
It'd be a huge stretch to declare video games and home entertainment systems to be under the umbrella of the FCC, and any kind of censorship or regulation on their part would be a massive expansion of their purpose and powers. I just don't see this happening.
The FCC is one of the most important governmental agencies with regards to technology and culture, yet the FCC doesn't seem to have any clue what it's supposed to be doing. They consistently eliminate or nullify their most valuable powers (ensuring fair and beneficial use of the public airwaves), while trying to grab ridiculous and useless ones to replace them (censorship, this nonsense).
is a tried and true practice.
As such, they try and pick a category which is nearly indefensible. Children work very well.
The trick is not allowing yourself to be intimidated by this type of tactics. Look at the debates over health care, stimulus, and such. Who do they put into the argument who doesn't have bearing on what you were addressing? Children, the poor, the elderly, or the "insert favored group here". All in an attempt to change the discussion just enough to devalue your stand.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Firearms are just another means of killing people, Ideas could instill hundreds, thousands or millions with the desire to kill(hence the revolutions of the past) and they'll achieve it with/without firearms if motivated enough. I imagine many governments see ideas as far more dangerous than guns.
In Transylvania...
oops I mean Pennsylvania they sent two teens to jail (for one night) because they took photos of their naked bodies. Oh horror! You can see your teenage body naked while showering or dressing, but use a camera to capture that sight with your cellphone...... and the world will come to an end!!! (So claims the prosecutor.)
It's especially stupid considering the U.S. Supreme Court ruled nudity is not pornography, therefore not a crime. I guess the prosecutor doesn't read SCOTUS decisions.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
FDR's Thought Police: Still Alive, Still Censoring.
The FCC shouldn't fine a network over an inadvertent nipple slip.
Mostly like the (somewhat broken) MPAA, there should merely by ratings and guidelines that enable parents to make decisions for themselves on how to raise their kids.
I don't want my daughter playing Grand Theft Auto. But I certainly don't want anyone telling me how to raise my kid. Voluntary rating systems are the way to go. However, unlike the MPAA, the rules for how the ratings are determined should be transparent.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
We both must be about the same age - I'm 45. It just kills me that we have to have "play dates" for my kids to play with other kids, and my kids don't venture into the woods the way I liked so much as a kid. We agree that today's environment of fear is just that - pointless fear, driven by the media.
Anyway, some things are different today. My introduction to porn was sneaking peaks at my Dad's Playboy magazines, which he would read while Mom cleaned and cooked and held down a job. Dad's back then had it all - no poopy diapers, wives who did all the housework and had paying jobs, and who felt guilty if you didn't get enough sex...
Today, kids don't get that sneak-peek into porn when they finally become curious about sex. And, let's face it... Playboy had a sense of class and beauty missing from redtube.com. Instead, eight-year girls type "hot guy" into Google, and get hard-core video. Their intro into the idea of sex is likely going to be a foot-long dong butt-f*cking a teenager.
I took advice I got here on slashdot, and use the free opendns.com DNS filter. I also use addblock plus in firefox on all our computers. OpenDNS gives me some control over the content filiter - I use the low settings, only blocking phishing and hard-core porn. These tools are waaaaay better than anything the FCC might dream up. Instead of more government censorship, how about a program for training/educating parents, so we can all learn how to take advantage of the excellent, and free tools that already exist out there? Something as simple as requiring ISPs to send information packets about Internet filtering might do the trick. Perhaps requiring the installers who do house visits to train how to filter, not just how to use the DVR. All parents know how to record Pokemon. How many know how to protect their kids from googling "hot guys"?
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
The Nanny state. The "useful idiots" who voted this crowd in are getting what they deserve.
If the government said, "Y'know, we'd like to exert more control over the blogosphere, over all electronic media, really: restrict what is said, know the identities of who is saying it, get a firm handle on who is on the mailing lists of Markos Moulitsas and Rush Limbaugh... whaddya say, citizens, can we do that?" the answer would be a resounding, "Over Our Dead Body."
The "kids" thing is the spoonful of sugar that makes the tyranny go down...
True, but guns make the task a whole lot easier.
it's always "protect the children" I spent all of my childhood past the age of 8 online and did I get abducted? did I become a horrible person?
Well, you're here, aren't you? ;)
Free Martian Whores!
A better way to use anecdote would be to ask, "How many of the people I went to grade school with were abducted by strangers" vs. "How many of the people I went to school with were hurt in car accidents?"
If you are talking about things that parents can do themselves you are correct but if you plan to use the force of law to regulate my behavior then it absolutely pertains to me, children or not.
To put it into statistical perspective, lets exaggerate a bit (ok, a lot :)) and say that all those activities you listed has a 40% chance of resulting in death or dismemberment. Is that an acceptable statistic? Absolutely not, yet you'd still have 60% of people sarcastically proclaiming "Hey I did all that stuff as a kid. How did I possibly survive!?!?". The answer is simple: you survived because you were in the group that fell on that side of the equation. That doesn't mean though that any legislation that drops that accident rate from 40% to 0.05% is wasted effort though."
Err...the point of my anecdotal rant wasn't so much that only I survived due to the things I did. It was more that my entire generation, and generations before mine that did just fine without 24/7 instant communications, and did just fine playing outdoors all the time doing things that would be considered too dangerous for little Johnny and Susie to do today.
My point is the mentality has changed so drastically, that our precious children are so helpless, and need overprotection...and now we're trying more and more to mandate it into LAW that affects not only kids behavior, but, also that of adults wanting to do adult things.
I have a hard time believing that there are more child sex offenders, abductors or what have you out there today than in past years. Maybe a few more, but, not so many as to warrant the fear and overprotection measures out there today. I say it is more the instant communication, and the multitude of 24/7 news channels that have to have something to report that is sensational enough to gather large commercial watching crowds.
But really, those things I listed I did as a kid, were NOT done alone...I had friends, lots of friends who were there doing that stuff with me. Most all kids my age were doing shit like that...it was known back then at "being a kid".
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hell, I grew up with no cell phones, [...] while never wearing a helment.
Same here to all the above.
I contend that the world today is no less safe for kids, but that every single bad thing that may happen is broadcast nationally in lurid detail. My father-in-law is convinced that there's a pedo behind every tree and that I'm stupid for not being more worried about it (yes: those were his words). Does anyone know where I could find stats on things like abductions by strangers that would show wish view is more accurate?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
There are SCADS of "plans" in place to afford you all the control you could want - right up to and including NOT putting a computer in your kid's room or even NOT having an internet connection to the house. On the shiny side of that there's DNS solutions, filtering software and even learning to use the goddamn HOSTS file in your own computer.
Your right to raise your kids does not trump another's right to indulge in whatever perversion tickles their fancy nor does it trump yet another's right to express said perversions. Deal with it.
so do poisons, knives, cars, broken shards of glass, icepicks, etc... i dont want them holding my hand for everything, i'd rather die free than live over-controlled!
I see the usual cohort of libertarian slashdotters is in full freak out mode because of this. But if they bothered to they would see: "The FCC also is asking commenters to "to discuss whether the Commission has the statutory authority to take any proposed actions and whether those actions would be consistent with the First Amendment."" Posting as AC to preserve karma.
I agree 100%... The more "responsibility" the government takes, the less the parents can take. And IMHO that's the fundamental problem that has yet to be addressed... Fewer and fewer parents actually parenting and taking responsibility for their own children.
There. Fixed that for ya.
But, no, seriously. if the governments says your child has to do a,b and c, and has to have x,y, and z (even though it means husband and wife must take second jobs in order to provide them), you've limited what the parents CAN do.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
"Speaking of which, for all those who are so vocal against this but do not have children... this subject does not pertain to you. Please close this tab and go back to watching porn."
What? Since when does having someone else crap out a badly copied, smaller version of you give you magical insight into raising children? If anything, the unreasoned, illogical, over-reactionary response most people have when faced with something that might someday have a small chance of doing even the slightest amount of damage to their children shows that an unbiased observer might have a more valid opinion.
The FCC's tasking is to maintain orderly control of a supposedly scarce resource, parceling out that resource fairly for the good of our society, and ensuring that users of the resource do not interfere with each others broadcasts so that its utilization is not compromised.
How this turned into a game of censorship is a story of failure of government, and failure of the citizens. Not to mention downright unconstitutional. There is no authority given to the government that allows it to implement censorship; and there is an explicit legal wall against it that can only be misinterpreted by idiots in the form of the first amendment to the US constitution:
Sadly, they never did a decent job of seeing to the good of our society, preferring to service the demands of corporations over any recognition that the citizens might have something to say as well. What do I mean? Well, where are the citizen's broadcast bands? Nowhere, that's where. This is not a technological problem, or a scarcity problem. We've simply been disenfranchised.
The Internet is not a scarce resource. We can make "more of it" simply by laying cable and deploying devices. It won't interfere with the rest of the Internet. It doesn't require parceling out; its nature is that the more entities connect to it, the more pipe we lay, the better it gets.
So what, we should be asking, is the FCC doing anywhere near it? Doesn't someone need their hand slapped about now?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Agreed. I can't get too worked up about non-custodial parent kidnappings. OK, so Dad (or Mom) didn't have the legal right of custody. That's a far cry from them being sold to a Satanic cult, or whatever the moral panic is this week.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Here.
Well, there's been CB and HAM for decades, really, but if you're emphasizing the broad in broadcast, then yeah, we largely sold out that use of the spectrum years ago, partly because that's mostly how we knew how to do it (aside from the ad hoc community or public access station), partly because it's always been that case that money talks.
But yeah, citizen's broadcast? Here, on the internet, the first really democratic broad communications medium.
Tweet, tweet.