FCC Mulling More Control For Electronic Media 176
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.'"
tired of this "control the internet for the kids" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Physical activity. (Score:3, Insightful)
The same has been said about TV.
The same has been said about books.
etc.
Older generations always criticise change brought about by younger generations.
The FCC is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just say no to FCC censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Agreed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Imagine... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so she's not given access to the greatest information resource of our age, nor to even measured amounts of what has become, rightly or wrongly, the central transport medium of western culture?
Good luck with that. I love the idea that depriving kids of something will keep them somehow pure. How's that forbidden fruit angle craving of hers coming along?
Also, as a self confessed geek, I would have though you would have been trying to foster an interest in technology and computers in general. Each to their own, but I can't say I agree with your approach.
What happened to parents??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Physical activity. (Score:3, Insightful)
Before video games, there was a wide range of active and sedate activities to choose from.
But the sedate ones couldn't trick your brain into thinking you're being active (pumping adrenaline, etc).
Re:The FCC is useless. (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet when the FCC's done, "net neutrality" will have evolved into something unrecognizable, more akin to censorship of our personal blogs and emails (and probably bittorrent too) rather than true net neutrality.
Mark my words. You'll come back here a year from now and say, "Wow you were right." I think we need to regulate monopolies like Comcast, but based upon what I've heard coming from the FCC Chair, he has something else in mind - control of the web. So basically we're trading one evil (comcast) for another (government).
How can this be legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Unlikely (Score:3, Insightful)
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).
Putting opponents on the defensive (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
FDR's Thought Police (Score:5, Insightful)
FDR's Thought Police: Still Alive, Still Censoring [mises.org].
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:5, Insightful)
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"?
Re:The FCC is useless. (Score:4, Insightful)
> So basically we're trading one evil (comcast) for another (government).
The big difference is, for the most part Comcast's remedies if you subvert them are largely civil in nature -- denying you future service, charging you penalty fees, suing you, or the like. The government can have you thrown in prison.
Of course, some companies and court jurisdictions have been hard at work finding creative ways to criminalize breaches of corporate policy (particularly through abuse of "theft of electricity" rationales), but for the most part there's still a line between things that are criminal vs merely civil. Comcast's mostly on the 'civil' side, but the government is almost exclusively on the 'criminal' side.
Re:Just say no to FCC censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>You've lost me here. We are talking about children, so why would anyone in their right mind "adopt a more-adult attitude"? Let kids be kids. I think it's totally unfair to make them grow up any faster than they already have to.
>>>
Because.
When my 8-year-old asked, "Where do babies come from?" I told him the answer straight up - "When a married man and woman are sleeping together in bed, the man puts his penis into her. Then a baby grows inside." He went "ewww" and that was the end of it. He was no more traumatized by that info then he was traumatized about wiping poo off his bottom. And I think your idea that kids should be kept in the dark or lied to ("babies come from the stork") is akin to mental child abuse.
Okay granted YOU didn't say you lie to your kids, but I know a lot of parents who do. Then later the kid gets pregnant or knocks-up a girl at age 13, and they wonder how that happened. Duh. It's because they never TAUGHT the kid how their bodies work, that's why. I don't see any reason to withhold knowledge. Better they learn it from me under my supervision, then on their own or from someone else.
>>>I don't feel the gov't has the right to tell people how to raise their children in general
Agreed.
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:3, Insightful)
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? ;)
Re:How can this be legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just say no to FCC censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
Mostly this is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Sure there is some physical limit before which it's not possible for a child to respond to delayed consequences but if parents never expect this behavior from their children then they won't learn it as quickly. The brain is very flexable like that.
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:3, Insightful)
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?"
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:2, Insightful)
PANIC (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:tired of this "control the internet for the kid (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
The pachyderm in the post (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:How can this be legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Obama has demonstrated even less interest in the Constitution than Bush.
The key difference here was that Bush was too foolish to understand the Constitution - Obama has said in interviews that he believes the negative reciprocity upon which the Constitution is based is flawed, and that we ought to have a system of positive rights.
I'm not quite sure I understand your point. Are you saying that Obama is better because he intentionally violates the Constitution, while Bush just did it through ignorance?
Re:The pachyderm in the post (Score:1, Insightful)
Amen, Brother (or Sister)
We are so freaking off-course from the Constitution! Everything is screwed up and it's all so big, nobody can understand it or fix it. We need to move politics and government out of Washington D.C. and back to the States.
Re:How about zero control? (Score:3, Insightful)
Though I have a clear opinion on which side I agree with there, that's a great example of one thing that makes censorship such a mess: whose standards do you censor by? You're gonna get either mob rule or its opposite depending on how you make that call.