Truth in Ratings Act Reintroduced 302
dropgoal writes "Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas (and GOP presidential candidate) has reintroduced the Truth in Ratings Act. Like the previous version that failed to pass last year, Sen. Brownback's bill would make the FTC responsible for overseeing the video game ratings system and possibly result in a unified ratings system for games, movies, and TV. The ESRB would also have to review all game footage before issuing a rating. Currently, the ESRB hands out ratings after viewing a reel with representative content prepared by the developers. Sen. Brownback thinks that's not enough. 'Video game reviewers should be required to review the entire content of a game to ensure the accuracy of the rating. The current video game ratings system is not as accurate as it could be because reviewers do not see the full content of games and do not even play the games they rate', he said."
Speaking of rating... (Score:3, Insightful)
A bit off topic
...why does this remind me of... (Score:2)
Date based or procedural content? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Date based or procedural content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Date based or procedural content? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does the senator know what he's suggesting? (Score:2)
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Parent is of course, completely correct. Last time the christ brigade rolled out in record numbers over gay marriage, sealing the 2004 election, and now the democrats are gearing up to do it all over again. Good f*ing job guys.
and for the record, I agree that this won't stand up in court, and the author probably knows this. It's politics, as they say. (ie. politics as in a ruse to get this idiot's name in the papers, proclaiming that he 'thought of the children', in hopes of winning some
Re:Date based or procedural content? (Score:4, Insightful)
Face it, they're two asses of the same horse. Except that Hillary might get her party's nomination, and Brownback doesn't have a chance in hell.
Simple (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Date based or procedural content? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Date based or procedural content? (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. In the current generation of games, it's seldom possible to "review the entire content of a game". There's hardcore gamers who go through games multiple times and don't even see all the content for years because of subplots they didn't know how to activate, or some obscure combination of factors that unlocks other content. And what about patches that dramatically alter the game's content? Do we need a ratings panel to review every patch for every game?
Games like GTA, The Elder Scrolls series, and other dynamic world games would be virtually impossible to review without there being hundreds of ratings reviewers who collaborate to systematically make different choices than each other. And then there are player mods to consider. Games like Half-Life become an entirely different beast once a few mods start getting popular.
I think the biggest problem for the idea will be the games we see that become completely dynamic, where all game world content is generated differently every single time. It's like asking someone to play through entire content of Dungeons and Dragons (the tabletop game). Make sure you visit every city, plane, run every adventure module, etc. That shouldn't take any more than 6000 years.
I can imagine the good ol' senator shitting a brick after hearing how it's done. "What do you mean they can just make this crap up as they go along? It's not fair! I want it rated!"
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Most computer games are exempt from BBFC [bbfc.co.uk]British Board of Film Classification, which regulates Cinema and Films here in the UK. According to their FAQ:
Under the Video Recordings Act, most video games are exempt from BBFC classification. However, they may lose this exemption - and therefore require a formal BBFC classification - if they depict, to any significant extent, gross violence against humans or animals, human sexual activity, human urinary or excretory functions or genital organs, or techniques likely to be useful in the commission of offences. In the early days of video games, the quality of graphics was so low that, even when 'human' or 'animal' characters were depicted, they were unlikely to be realistic enough to be covered by the Act. However, the increasing sophistication of computer graphics means that nowadays a number of games require classification, usually because they contain violence against realistic human figures. In some cases, games may also need to be submitted to the BBFC because they contain non-interactive video elements (eg trailers or film clips) that do not enjoy the same exemption as interactive games.
So the latest GTA game will get an 18 rating and as with films cannot be legally sold to under 18s. Their statistics page [bbfc.co.uk] shows that last year (2006) they rated 298 work
Months of footage (Score:2, Insightful)
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May as well rate your Crayons the same way.
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We can all relax now (Score:5, Funny)
~S
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It was always burning
since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
but we tried to fight it"
Thanks, Billy.
Disclaimer: I am not a Republican, although in some ways I am rather conservative.
The full content? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Funny, that was my first thought too. Then I remembered they aren't testing the game for bugs, they are just looking for anything offensive. Generally, a cursory run through a game will give a pretty good indication of the rating. In the very rare cases where a developer is stupid enough to put something *hidden* into the game that will ruin its rating, a simpl
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I don't see how...the outcry over "hidden" adult content in a game is based mostly around that Hot Coffee thing, which required players to actually download a patch from the internet to see it. Since the internet is already full of plenty of adult content, I don't see how this is a problem. Not to mention that the game (GTA) was already rated M...
The current system works just fine. It's just a victim of politicians wh
Re:The full content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rated M, what does that mean? Does it mean that you have to 18 yrs or older to buy the game? Nope. Does it mean you have to have your parents with you to buy the game? Nope. It means nothing at all. It's voluntarily rated M as a warning to parents who may be buying the game for their preacher's kid, nothing more. There is no legal binding behind it. All this guy wants to do is to place a standardized rating system on video games so that the technically illiterate can understand it.
And it's not just the outcry over the Hot Coffee thing, but GTA in general. The object of the game is to carjack as many people as possible. Bonus points for beating up whores and ripping them off!??! It's not just the Hot Coffee that is the problem, it's the whole damn game and games like it. Ever play Postal 2? You piss on people, cut their heads off with shovels, douse them with gasoline and throw lit matches on them... and so on. How about Duke Nukem 3D ("Shake it, Baby!")? These games need a rating so that any 5 year-old off the street can't just walk into any GameStop and pick up GTA New Orleans-Mardis Gras.
It's not that I think all games should be Disney approved, but a rating system can actually free programmers to make whatever game they want. The can make "Sam and Max go the Red Light District" because the second a parent complains, all they have to say is, "Hey lady, you have to be 18 or over to buy this game. You saw the rating, why did you buy it for your kid? Do you buy them Playboy too? Then why did you buy them a game that says in plain letters that it is an X-rated game, right there on the label?" Right now, Sam and Max--Red Light will not be made because they'd get too much heat. Allow an X rating and it's on!
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Who cares...Most places do enforce ratings, and anybody old enough to get themselves to a game store and buy a game for $50 or so is probably old enough to play an M rated game. If they're not, then their parents should be paying more attention to them. It's not my problem if their parents don't care enough to filter what gets into their hands.
It's voluntarily rated M as a warning to parents who may be
Re:The full content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should review the legal status of movie ratings in the US.
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Rated M, what does that mean? Does it mean that you have to 18 yrs or older to buy the game?
I'll just point out that movies are handled the exact same way. It's voluntary, with the exception of X rated stuff.
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If you are talking about two naked characters having sex on screen then yes it did require additional content. If you are talking about dry humping between a full clothed man and a partially modeled woman (they didn't even finish texturing her) then yeah that was on the disk and could be accessed with a running memory hacking program
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I doubt it. What I expect to see is the product manager and maybe a programmer or QA tech go to their ratings meeting with the FTC. These two sit in a room with a few FTC reps and they ask questions about the game. Then they say, "OK, show me everything". The QA tester or programmer runs through each of the levels and shows all the cut scenes. Of course, the
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Re:The full content? (Score:4, Funny)
Just hand the guys a giant text file of all the game dialog so they can scan it for profanity and racy phrases. Then do a long and tedious slideshow of all the wireframe models and their associated skins. Seeing as they only seem to care about nudity and gross obscenities, this should work just fine.
How? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the main problem is that the company supplies the footage to be reviewed. How many marketing/PR guys do you think that goes through before it reaches the censors. Perhaps it would be better for a group of independent game players to generate a representative reel of footage. I will be the first volunteer to take that job. On second though - imagine all the crap you would need to play!
patches (Score:2, Insightful)
ESRB doesn't ask for a random sample (Score:5, Informative)
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Aaaargh! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bet that if you asked him after injecting him with Sodium Pentothal, the illustrious senator would admit that he doesn't expect that the bill will have a snowball's chance in hell of passing.
Isn't Brownback a Republican? (Score:5, Interesting)
What ever happened to the party of "less government interference?"
That's right, I remember now. It was the Unholy Alliance that did in the fiscally-conservative, small-government Republicans. Now the Republicans seem to be the party of fiscally-unrestrained big government. I find it rather humorous that during the Bush Years the FCC has steadfastly held to its notion that the free market will provide us all with speedy, cheap broadband and all kinds of broadcast diversity, yet one tit shows up on the Super Bowl and suddenly the FCC stirs into action. The FTC is an entity often decried for its meddlesome consumer protection activities, but throw up the hue and cry of "think of the children!" and suddenly the FTC is a useful government agency.
It seems the party now stands for individual freedom to make money, government money to spend money, and meddlesome interference into matters of so-called morality. Perhaps the theory is that if you can't make government work more efficiently, you may as well try to make it an extension of the church.
Re:Isn't Brownback a Republican? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oddly, so is the Democratic Party.
At the end of the day, strident "liberals" and "conservatives" have exactly the same political philosophy: the government should get its nose out of the business of people who are doing things I approve of, but spare no expense stopping people from doing things that make me feel uneasy.
Beautiful (Score:4, Insightful)
the government should get its nose out of the business of people who are doing things I approve of, but spare no expense stopping people from doing things that make me feel uneasy.
Nicely put.
Political parties are the problem. Hamilton was adamantly opposed to them, even when one was forming around him in opposition to the Jeffersonians. Perhaps he was on to something. Line up behind a party, and you have to do a lot less thinking for yourself. But of course, how are you going to stop people from organizing into political parties? It is human nature to form into groups, for better and for worse.
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Fiscal conservatives and small government types have always been the black sheep in the Republican party. Reagan was not typical of the party.
Sounds like I need to educate myself (Score:2)
Fiscal conservatives and small government types have always been the black sheep in the Republican party.
I always thought Reagan was essentially a "return to the roots" of Republicanism, a sort of clearing the decks after decades of Democrats leading the show with the continuation of New Deal policies under other names. To me Reagan's cleverest stroke was to turn the Republicans into the party of strong military defense, but I assumed his harangues against big government were just a more skillfully deli
Re:Sounds like I need to educate myself (Score:4, Informative)
Before WWII, Republicans were both socially and fiscally conservative for the most part, and more the latter. Teddy Roosevelt was actually a social radical, but he left the Republican party around 1912 or so. Coolidge and Hoover left the invisible hand alone for the most part. (What party was Smoot and Hawley in, and are protectionist tariffs fiscally conservative or fiscally radical?)
After 1960, Kennedy effectively made the Democratic Party the party of civil rights. Southerners started switching parties from Democrat to Republican around then, and they made the Republican Party socially conservative. I'm not sure who was the first Republican to be fiscally radical: maybe Reagan, but it could've been as early as Nixon. I mean, foreign military quagmires and wiretapping weren't much cheaper then than they are now.
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Unfortunately, I don't see any small government types in the c
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You are correct, however, that Reagan did a lousy job of getting spending under control. But I only place half the blame at Reagan's feet. The other half I place at the feet of congress, you kept sending him massive appropriations bills to sign.
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And the spineless (and aparently mindless) Chief Executive signed. Clinton balanced the budget. He had to shut down the government multiple times to do it by not signing the first budget placed in front of him. Congress will always spend way too much if they know they can get away with it. Reagan signed it. He is responsible. If he didn't want responsibility, he shouldn't have signed. Well, at
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Big government *IS* big buisness. Government is the only consumer worth a damn anymore. Call it socialism, or state c
Re:Isn't Brownback a Republican? (Score:5, Funny)
That's "Mr. Timberlake" to you, buddy.
Doesn't matter if it is not workable (Score:5, Interesting)
I have learned that nowadays, the main reason that law-makers introduces new laws is to boost their own popularity. It doesn't matter if the law cannot work, is impractical, will be struck down in courts, etc. It only matters that the (1) it grabs the headline thus putting his name on the news and (2) it showed people that he has "taken a stance" against something.
Just think about it, is it a surprise that people who are elected based on a popularity contest do things to boost their own popularity?
If you want to stop this law from passing, don't waste your time telling people it is not workable. Stuck at the heart of the matter and go tell games companies how much money it will wastes them, and tell people how many jobs such money could have created instead, or how much dividends would it costs the stock holders of those game companies.
Turn the law into an unpopular proposition and it will be dead.
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Rate video cards under a specific benchmark? result: the video cards are made to perform better under that benchmark, to the detriment of regular performance.
Give money to poor people with kids? result: poor people have more kids, even though it just makes them poorer.
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An Immutable Fact of Politics (Score:2)
Then, it will get reborn again.
SB
Hmm (Score:2, Funny)
The full footage? Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that "objectionable content" is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
And what of "patches" and "mods"?
Heck take some of the "dance moves" from WOW and line them up and you have simulated sex, at least within the limits within the minds of people who think that some of these other things were "objectionable".
The Nanny State cannot hope to get closure over this, and trying to is just more waste of my taxpayer dollar.
Note to you regulation-happy people out there: Your "precious bundle" is neither as fragile as you imagine, nor as important as you dream. Neither are you. If janet jackson's saggy boobie and the gyrations of a pair of 100 polygon figures are enough to undermine your sense of moral turpitude, then you are a mindless chode; and might I suggest that the world is much safer if you put an opaque polyethylene bag over your head. (But it only _really_ works if you cinch it snuggly. Assist your child before yourself.)
Now if you can get truth in ratings for suckage, then we can talk.
The best-case scenario is the worst-case scenario (Score:5, Informative)
Duke Nukem Forever? (Score:2, Funny)
Why is this an issue? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why does the Slashdot crowd care if games are assigned ratings? People always say that parents should be the ones to monitor their children not the government, or the games company, etc. But, parents need tools to be able to make these decisions.
No, it won't be perfect. But, it will be accurate enough to allow people to make a purchasing decision.
This isn't a censorship issue. To me, there is nothing wrong with assigning a rating to content so that you can make an informed purchase.
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candidate (Score:3, Informative)
The senator is not a GOP presidential candidate. He is a candidate for the GOP nomination. Big difference. Thank goodness he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting it. None of the current nomination seekers thrill me, but Brownback is near the bottom of the list.
Why is the /. community so opposed to this? (Score:4, Insightful)
But it seems like every attempt at improving the accuracy or consistency of ESRB ratings is met with derision and anger. Any attempt at *enforcing* those ratings is clubbed down as fascism. Why? The ratings exist because kids shouldn't beat a virtual hookers' brains out with a bat. I'm ok with that. I know they'll see the violence elsewhere, but so what? Do you permit anything through your firewall the moment your manager makes you toss up a stupid rule?
I'm a social liberal, I live in West Hollywood, frequent the clubs, fall to the left on almost every issue, etc.. But this all or nothing approach is silly and stinks of NRA tactics. Yes, the NRA is effective, but I don't want to be like them. Reasonable adults compromise.
I would like to compromise some and get these politicos off our backs before they do something truly draconian, like ban red blood, or any blood for that matter.
- Allow ESRB raters to choose the spots of the game they will examine. No auditor comes in and says, "show me what you think I should see." That's just dumb.
- Fine stores whose clerks don't card for MA+ games. This isn't fascist, it's simply obeying the law.
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There is just as much evidence of harm to children caused by exposure to these other forms. What's special about games?
Finally, what part of "Congress shall make no law" is unclear to you and Sen. Brownback? The government is not supposed to be in the business of rating video games, any more than it's supposed to be in the business of reviewing Sunday sermons.
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Huh? Since when can a kid get into a porno? Can a 12 year old buy Hustler? If the less extreme forms of these mediums are not enforced then that's a different issue. Actually, this entire point is a different issue, we're discussing games ratings here.
There is just as much evidence of harm to children caused by exposure to these other forms. What's special about games
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The federal government of the United States is *supposed* to be in the business of a limited set of things that it was granted power over by the constitution. I guess that video games are relevant to "interstate commerce", in the same way that medical marijuana in California and growing wheat for personal use are, but...
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Are people skimming or something? This is not a debate about artistic mediums in general, this is about video games. No scope creep.
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There is no need to add extra laws to the system over video games because the issue of pornography in games would already be held by the normal laws that cover all pornography.
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The ESRB was the compromise. It was created the first time the government came after video games. This was meeting them half way. If you keep moving back the line in the sand eventually you
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Re:Why is the /. community so opposed to this? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Fine stores whose clerks don't card for MA+ games. This isn't fascist, it's simply obeying the law.
What law?
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What's with you guys? Is stopping a 17 year old from buying a stupid game that bad of a thing? He'll just get his 18 year old friend to buy it anyway. But the
You can't be... (Score:2)
Truth. Ha. (Score:2, Funny)
Suggestion (Score:2, Interesting)
i dont know, its pretty accurate (Score:2)
Awesome Government Jobs? (Score:2)
With that disclaimer out of the way, wouldn't it be sweet to be able to get a federal government job playing games and then rating them? I'd climb aboard that gravy train!
E is for "Drinking Game" (Score:3, Interesting)
The game is free to download, but we had a publisher and put out a box version with some extra goodies. The game was sent off to be rated and they came back with an "E" rating, to which we replied "Really? Even though there's a drinking game in there?" It's not a central part of Puzzle Pirates, but is easily found and playable at any Inn: pass out and miss a turn.
They hadn't even noticed, but after our helpful idiocy they bumped us to "T".
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Do you have a problem with that...?
Oh but watch out for Tits... OMG I said it!!!!!!!!!one!1
What's in a name? (Score:2, Insightful)
How to get moderated flamebait - wider issues (Score:4, Interesting)
An issue that the US needs to address is that it has created a huge rod for its own back by providing vast outpourings of violent content. "24" is a good example. It is quite amazingly good propaganda for Islamic fundamentalists, because it portrays extreme violence as being appropriate in dealing with any perceived threat. How can you tell fundamentalists that beheading hostages is wrong when it is clearly behaviour approved of so long as it is by Americans? How can you persuade Iraqis that the US army doesn't spend its time torturing them when they can pass around professionally made videos showing that this is exactly how Americans behave when they want something? I am quite sure that Al-Queda recruiting and training camps spend more time showing their gullible trainees mainstream American material than their own videos because they can use it to "prove" that the US will go to any lengths at all to get what it wants.
I think there is a case to be made that game producers should be required to document their content. It should not be necessary for reviewers to sit through games. Somewhere there are surely storyboards, scripts, and a system map. It should be possible to identify content against an agreed set of criteria and to identify risk areas ("Players can create anatomically detailed avatars."
Please note this is not censorship. It merely applies the same level of disclosure to a game as applies to a book. Hiding extremely violent content in difficult to access levels of a game is not an excuse for not documenting content, even if that documentation is necessarily restricted in circulation
The producers of a film and the publishers of a book make the entire content readily available for assessment. This has not prevented the circulation of either. I cannot see why the same standard of disclosure should not apply to games. I suspect that an issue in the response here is that some of the younger /. readers get kicks out of doing something which they think is a closed book to the adult world. I have news for them. Games are produced by corporations: you are not doing something counter-cultural, you are doing something that is ultimately for the benefit of midle aged suits. In the same way there is nothing rebellious about teenagers drinking whisky; you are just doing what the drink marketing people are trying to persuade you to do through carefully judged advertising.
Sweet (Score:2)
Is this even constitutional? (Score:2)
All the content? (Score:2)
As usual, politicians rely on ignorance (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the game industry is one you shouldn't piss off too much, it is a money maker. And I know at least one key company that does sponsor political campaigns. For both parties, just to cover the bases.
I'm quite sure this whole ploy is just the usual political play with people's ignorance. He knows 2 things well:
1. It's impossible to implement.
2. Even if by some feat of luck it gets possible, court will shoot it down.
3. Even if the courts don't care, neither will the gamers and still buy whatever they want.
So, essentially, from a purely practical point of view, the whole idea is as useful as many other political ideas that are, if you take a step back and look at it from afar (after doing a little research), quite blatantly pointless.
What sticks, though, is that he did "something" for our children. It's a bit like the war on terror or other problems without a solution that doesn't hurt. It doesn't matter if what you do works, as long as you do "something" you can't be held responsible for not addressing the problem. It might not work out, but hey, at least he tried!
And for some reason in our political climate, a man is already a hero for trying. Talk 'bout apathy.
That was RSAC (Score:2)
The rating system should rate games 1 thru 5 for three categories based on how how much violence, sex, and profanity are in them. To make it easier they could name the rating levels, so a game might have "Extreme Violence, Mild Profanity, and Mild Sexual Situations".
I remember when what you suggest was called RSAC [wikipedia.org]. ESRB beat RSAC because its simplicity was easier to market.
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MMOs have a baseline rating (I've usually seen T) and carry the "Game experience may change during online play" disclaimer to cover anything that wasn't part of the game when it was reviewed. The disclaimer is part of the ESRB ratings system [esrb.org] to accomodate online games with "user-generated content," including chatting or permitted modifications. TFA seems to imply that only the ratings process
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The Comptroller General will conduct a study determining the "(1) the effectiveness of the ESRB video and computer game content ratings system, including content ratings for on-line or Internet-based games;" [...] and his report shall "contain recommendations regarding effective approaches to video and computer game content ratings that address the unique ratings challenges of on-line and Inter
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I agree that it wouldn't survive in court, but it is useful to remember that the original Communications Decency Act (a much stricter form of censorship) was passed by 84-16 in the Senate and the recent Family Entertainment Protection Act was introduced by Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Tim Johnson and Evan Bayh. If you think that there will be any road bumps by Democratic or Republican Senators (or Representatives) you
Re:won't survive (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've yet to see a candidate I would actually consider voting for instead of just seeing it like a lesser evil.
Re:won't survive (Score:4, Insightful)
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