George Will, conservative columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post, is kind enough to cite my recent City Journal essay in his new article that takes liberals to task for trying to revive the so-called Fairness Doctrine. He argues that:
Some illiberal liberals are trying to restore the luridly misnamed Fairness Doctrine, which until 1987 required broadcasters to devote a reasonable amount of time to presenting fairly each side of a controversial issue. The government was empowered to decide how many sides there were, how much time was reasonable and what was fair.
By trying to again empower the government to regulate broadcasting, illiberals reveal their lack of confidence in their ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and their disdain for consumer sovereignty–and hence for the public.
Indeed. Will goes on to cite the multiplicity of media options we have at our disposal today relative to the past but he notes–in agreement with my recent City Journal essay–that that’s just not good enough for some liberals who want to guarantee that certain views get heard more than others that win out in the marketplace of ideas.
The past couple years have seen a whole new focus by policymakers on violence in media, from the recent refocusing of the FCC on violent video to the violent video game ban in California.
All this implicates what is and ought to be bedrock free speech law. Setting aside the narrow, carefully drawn exceptions for soliciting and inciting crime–which require fairly direct involvement
Continue reading →
By all means, let’s consider doing something about television violence. But why don’t we start with the obvious?
Digital set-top boxes will allow parents to buy specialty tiers of programming as well as make use of more powerful parental control technologies. Trouble is, not enough families have them. The Federal Communications Commission emphasized this fact yesterday when it issued a report concerning television violence. The report noted that a significant problem with parental controls is “it does not appear that cable operator-provided advanced parental controls are available on a sufficient number of cable-connected television sets to be considered an effective solution at this time.”
There’s a shortage of parental controls mainly because consumer electronics manufacturers have been concentrating their efforts on high-end devices that incorporate high-definition and recording features, forsaking the low-cost, limited capability devices that generate less profit. Congress unintentionally created this market failure when it ordered the FCC to eliminate proprietary or “integrated” set-top boxes provided by the cable companies to their customers via Section 629 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, enacted to give a boost to consumer electronics manufacturers who wanted to produce cable set-top boxes and market them directly to consumers.
But wait.
Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, recently asked the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver of the ban so it can distribute low-cost, limited capability set-top boxes to subscribers who don’t want higher-end devices costing several hundred dollars (see this and
this.
Continue reading →
The FCC has just issued its long-awaited report on Violent Television Programming and Its Impact on Children. Unsurprisingly, it recommends that the government should assume a great role in regulating the video content that comes into our homes. The agency concludes that: “We believe that further action to enable viewer-initiated blocking of violent television content would serve the government’s interests in protecting the well-being of children and facilitating parental supervision and would be reasonably likely to be upheld as constitutional.” (p. 15)
Ambiguity Defined
Ironically, however, the FCC’s report goes on to undercut its own argument for regulation again and again because of the stunning level of ambiguity surrounding everything they propose. For example, in the second paragraph of the report, the FCC notes that “A broad range of television programming aired today contains [violent] content, including, for example, cartoons, dramatic series, professional sports such as boxing, news coverage, and nature programs.” Is the agency saying such things could be regulated? They never tell us.
Or consider the endless number of questions raised by this paragraph on pages 20-21:
We believe that developing an appropriate definition of excessively violent programming would be possible, but such language needs to be narrowly tailored and in conformance with judicial precedent. Any definition would need to be clear enough to provide fair warning of the conduct required. A definition sufficient to give notice of upcoming violent programming content to parents and potential viewers could make use of, or be a refinement of, existing voluntary rating system definitions or could make use of definitions used in the research community when studying the consequences of violent programming. For more restrictive time channeling rules, a definition based on the scientific literature discussed above, which recognizes the factors most important to determining the likely impact of violence on the child audience, could be developed. For example, such a definition might cover depictions of physical force against an animate being that, in context, are patently offensive. In determining whether such depictions are patently offensive, the Government could consider among other factors the presence of weapons, whether the violence is extensive or graphic, and whether the violence is realistic. (p. 20-21)
Let’s try to unpack some of this because defining “excessive violence” is really the core of this debate.
Continue reading →
According to today’s Washington Post, the FCC’s report on televised media content will be out within the week, and you can expect a whole lotta regulatin’ to be goin on once it hits the Hill.
In their article, “FCC Seeks To Rein In Violent TV Shows: Agency Will Recommend Law to Regulate Broadcast And Basic Cable Content,” Washington Post staff writers Paul Farhi and Frank Ahrens report that:
The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that regulating TV violence is in the public interest, particularly during times when children are likely to be viewers — typically between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., FCC sources say.
…
The report — commissioned by members of Congress in 2004 and based on hundreds of comments from parents, industry officials, academic experts and others — concludes that Congress has the authority to regulate “excessive violence” and to extend its reach for the first time into basic-cable TV channels that consumers pay to receive.
Continue reading →
I think we can all agree that Don Imus is an ass and that his comments about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team were offensive and racist. He has rightly been universally condemned for his actions, and his employers — CBS Radio and MSNBC — have terminated his morning talk show program as a result.
But does his behavior justify something more in the form of a regulatory response? Some people think so, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), the head of the Congressional Black Caucus. As this L.A. Times article notes, Rev. Sharpton and Rep. Kilpatrick argue that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should sanction the CBS Radio stations that aired the Imus remarks. Rep. Kilpatrick has also suggested that the FCC should mandate diversity training for CBS Radio and MSNBC employees who allowed the show to be broadcast.
It goes without saying that any effort by the FCC to regulate hate speech is going to raise a number of sticky constitutional issues. As former FCC Chairman Richard E. Wiley tells the L.A. Times: “Lets say there was a discussion of some minority issue, and somebody said something that somebody took offense to. You can see how very quickly it could get very complex constitutionally.” And as Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, told the Times: “You’d have to build another building just for all the complaints” the FCC would receive, he said.
Continue reading →
Tech Policy Weekly from the Technology Liberation Front is a weekly podcast about technology policy from TLF’s learned band of contributors. The shows’s panelists this week are Jerry Brito, James Gattuso, Tim Lee, Adam Thierer, and Ryan Paul of Ars Technica. Topics include,
- More states governments defy congress and reject REAL ID
- Won’t someone please think of the children?!
- the FTC’s new report on marketing violence to children
- the Child Online Protection Act
- and the .xxx domain is rejected
- How the net neutrality debate is bleeding into spectrum auctions and other quick bits
There are several ways to listen to the TLF Podcast. You can press play on the player below to listen right now, or download the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the podcast by clicking on the button for your preferred service. And do us a favor, Digg this podcast!
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Since 2000, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has surveyed the marketing and advertising practices of major media sectors (movies, music and video games) in a report entitled Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children. (The reports can be found here). According to the agency, the purpose of these reports is to examine “the structure and operation of each industry’s self-regulatory program, parental familiarity and use of those systems, and whether the industries had marketed violent entertainment products in a manner inconsistent with their own parental advisories.” The fifth report in this ongoing series was released today.
Generally speaking, the latest report finds that things continue to improve in all three sectors with the greatest improvements coming in the video game sector. But the FTC argues that these industries still need to do more to improve their ratings systems and the enforcement of those systems.
Many of the FTC’s recommendations are unobjectionable in that they are basically suggesting these industries do a better job promoting and enforcing their own voluntary ratings and labeling systems. It’s tough to be against that, of course, but there are some interesting questions about what it means in practice.
Continue reading →
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking and writing about the contentious issues surrounding social networking sites, age verification mandates and online child safety in general. I recently released a major PFF working paper on these issues (“Social Networking and Age Verification: Many Hard Questions, No Easy Solutions“).
One of the people who has had a great deal of influence on my thinking about these matters is information security expert Jeff Schmidt, the CEO of Authis, a Reston-based authentication / identification firm. Jeff has 15 years of experience in this field and has worked for Microsoft, Ohio State University, and several other small technology companies. He is also a founder and the elected Director of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, which is the private sector component of the FBI’s InfraGard Program. (InfraGard is an FBI/private sector alliance dedicated to improving information sharing between private industry and the government on matters of national security). Jeff helped the FBI create the InfraGard Program in 1998.
So Jeff knows his stuff, and that’s what makes what he has to say about these issues–especially age verification–particularly important. Luckily, some of the essays he has penned on this subject and shared with me in the past are now online for all to see here. I thought I’d provide some highlights of the key conclusions from his papers, which are listed below:
Continue reading →
As a parent of two kids under the age of 6, I can very much relate to the questions going through Clive Thompson’s head. The Wired columnist’s latest essay is entitled “You Grew Up Playing Shoot’em-Up Games. Why Can’t Your Kids?” Like Thompson, I’m a first generation (Atari & Intellivision-era) gaming fanatic who is now raising third generation (PS & XBOX-era) gamer kids. (In case you are wondering, I define second generation gamers as the Nintendo NES & Sega-era.)
But also like Thompson, even though I’ve played just about every type of video game imaginable, I now find myself wondering how and when to introduce my kids to the world of gaming, including games with violent themes or action. Thompson begins his own introspection with the following funny story:
I was playing a round of Gears of War, trying to redo a level on “insane” mode, and the walls were painted with guts. I slaughtered my way to the boss, revved up my chainsaw, and sliced into his chest — releasing a fractal fountain of gore. Woo! At that instant, I heard the front door to my apartment open, and in walked my nanny… with my 15-month-old son, his eyes agog. Daddy, I could see him thinking, what are you doing?
Oh, nothing, son. Just kicking back with a mass-murder simulator. That’s all! So I hastily clicked off my Xbox 360, and avoided the nanny’s eyes. But it got me thinking: Eventually he’s going to want to play video games. And then I’ll have to face the traditional child-rearing quandaries that games present. When will I hand him his first controller? Will I let him play the gory combat games I love so much — and, if so, when?
Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.