Congress Sets Sights on Videogames 354
boarder8925 writes "According to CNET, Congress has set its sights on 'the purported problem of violent and sexually explicit video games.... A U.S. House of Representatives committee on consumer protection says it will hold a hearing on the topic later this month, with a focus on 'informing parents and protecting children' from the alleged dangers of those types of games.' " The article goes on to describe seven bills under consideration that either attach fines to the sales of Mature titles to children, or study "the effect of electronic media on youths." Five of them are sponsored by Democrats.
Damned if you do... (Score:5, Funny)
I love how our political system works. You can either vote for the party that pisses all over the middle of the bill of rights... or you vote for the party that pisses all over the top of the bill of rights.
AWESOME!
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
God, sometimes I hate this town.
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2, Interesting)
What does this even mean? Electronic media is SO broad! They intend to study the effects of television, motion pictures, music, video games, and the interweb on children? What meaningful research could possibly come from this? That kids like electronic media more than the anolog alternatives?
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2)
That is, if they don't employ the statisticians so that they'll FIND biased statistics.
It's mid-term election time. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're just following the most basic of political teachings: It's easier to get people to vote if they're "protecting" their "children" from the "bad people".
You don't hate the children, do you?
You don't support the bad people, do you?
The only way to prevent this from happening is by writing letter to your Congress Critters and telling them exactly how you feel about the issues and that they will lose your vote (and the votes of anyone you can convince) if they do not vote against those bills.
Then you just have to convince enough of your friends/family to become an active voting bloc with you.
Freedom is not free. At the minimum, it takes time and effort.
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2)
This is why, even though I'm liberal, I never call myself democrat. Sometimes they sound sane, but that's only because they are being compared to the republicans.
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2)
This is why 75% of my vote is conservative (Score:2)
With the right to bear arms, I can, individually or as a part of a group (known as all the gun owners in america), defend every other right on the list.
I know it sounds crazy but if the police started spraying innocent protestors with tear gas, as long as they had the right to bear arms, they could fire back and defend their right to peaceable assemble. Granted they would probably be killed or imprisoned for years, it still ethically qualifies as self-defense.
Somethings faulty (Score:3, Insightful)
Jack Thompson = Popular Politics (Score:2)
Hopefully, of course, the whole thing will blow over. Our grandparents (or for you older slashdotters, maybe even your parents) claimed that Rock & Roll was downright satanic. Heck, way back in the day, books like Chopin's THE AWAKENING or Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER were seen as extremely overtly sexual and inappropriate.
Thi
Do they already pay attention? (Score:2, Insightful)
And anyways, isn't this what the ESRB was started for?
Re:Do they already pay attention? (Score:3, Funny)
Are you insane?
Re:Do they already pay attention? (Score:2)
Please include all media in this law, not just media playable by certain pieces of hardware using certain wired or wireless devices.
Movies, music, and books should also be banned due to this law. Most especially, the Bible, which contains many scenes of both debauchery and violence: hedonistic practices, fathers killing sons because of voices in their heads, entire cities being leveled due to a bet ("for the usual amount") between two make-believe parties, etc.
As to your sig, I starte
Re:Do they already pay attention? (Score:2)
You're welcome on your sig. ;-)
Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:4, Insightful)
I, and I alone, decide which values to give my kids.
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:5, Funny)
So that they can grow up and rebel against them, of course!
-stormin
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2)
I know when to quit.
-stormin
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:3, Funny)
DUDES! Get up out of my jock and get back to word. For God's sake. Literally: for God's sake. God is going to die if you don't do this.
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2)
I assume you also don't let them play with any other kids, right?
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2)
Maybe we should put RFID chips in peoples' genitals, and gather DNA samples to determine who is predetermined to be an irresponsible fuckwit. We could even program the chips to shock the hell out of those gonads to prevent procreation when the chips detect a match that's likely to produce a whiney emo douc
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2)
And that is one of the main reasons that the United States has such problems with fundamentalist Christianity at the moment. You let people raise their kids however they want, and a large number of them will be raised to be crazy. Which I wouldn't have a problem with, but crazy people vote, and, well, look what happens.
And to take it a step further, what about the David Koresh types whose idea of raising children includes teenage sex with elders? Most (sane) people would say that clearly requires interv
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2, Flamebait)
No, you don't. The government has to be able to stop in and intervene when you "choose" to just teach them crap. Such as, oh, that having sex with their parents is OK. Or that there's nothing wrong at all with polygamy. Or that you can go ahead and eat human flesh. Or that it's OK to kill black people.
Do we as a society embrace a wide variety of civil disagreements? Yes. And among those disgareements, you can teach your kids whatever you want. But
Nice thought, but (Score:2)
Should there be no intervention between a child and abuseive parents?
You may raise your kids, but you don't raise the other thousand they go to school with.
All they want is a way to let parents know what some games have in them. This is good so people have an opportunity to make INFORMED decsions when allowing there kid to do something. This is a GOOD thing.
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2)
Sorry, but that's not what Hillary Clinton thinks. After all, "it takes a village to raise a child." [amazon.com]. And what is that village? The good-old United States Federal Government, that's it. In order for that to happen, she's "going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." You, as an individual and a parent, don't matter to her. Don'
Re:Get your nose out of my kids a..es! (Score:2)
With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:4, Informative)
It makes no sense to differentiate between the two anymore. Sure there are "polarizing issues" -- like them god damn queers and whatever else is on the docket today -- but for the most part it is fairly certain that regardless of a given particular cause, the cause itself seems to be a restriction on individual liberty.
Re:With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:5, Insightful)
It never did. If you're voting for a party, you're a moron. Vote for people, not parties. There are good ones and awful ones in all of them.
Re:With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:2)
Re:With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:2)
I've always found this sentiment extremely bizarre. So, you can tell, by watching a commercial, or listening to sound bites, which of the candidate field (if any) is saying the right things, is willing to do what they say, and stand on principle? If so, you truly have magical psychic powers of which we could all surely use! It amazes me any time anyone talks about voting for a candidate, as if they could really know anything about their integrity or character! (Of course, this criticism is moderated somewh
Re:With regard to the editorial remark... (Score:2)
That may have been the point, but I think it's pretty clear now that it doesn't work that way.
It amazes me any time anyone talks about voting for a candidate, as if they could really know anything about their integrity or character!
If you can't tell if a guy is a dirtbag or not af
Help us get rid of Lieberman, then (Score:2)
Ah, the smell of bullshit in the evening. This is what Republicans would like you to think, especially in an election year where their utter incompetence/corruption/malfeasance is an issue. You're aware they control both houses of Congress as well as the executive branch, right?
(a) Zonk is wrong. Lieberman is a Republican [irregulartimes.com], in all but name, and progressive Democrats are
Where ARE the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where ARE the parents? (Score:2)
On-topic: I agree wholeheartedly. This type of policy only makes parents less and less accountable for their childrens' actions. It reminds me of the novel Brave New World: the concept of "family" and "parent" is becoming erased.
Re:Where ARE the parents? (Score:3, Interesting)
After all, you can always turn it off, right?
Re:Where ARE the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Odd,... I thought that was exactly what this bill does... it lets parents choose what video games they can play instead of letting the kids or government choose. Kids still have the right to play games under every piece of legislation mentioned. I am curious, should kids be allowed to purchase fireworks, firearms, cigarettes and alcohol too? (note: I am not equating the effect of video games with the others... simply the legality of sales)
Re:Where ARE the parents? (Score:2)
Tell me something: is it currently illegal for a 14 year old kid to buy an R rated movie? Last I checked, it wasn't. Why hold video games to a higher standard?
Re:Where ARE the parents? (Score:3, Interesting)
Your point is more insightful than many will give you credit for. Where exactly ARE there parents?
My wife is pregnant with our first child and I'm scared that by the time (s)he grows up, I won't even be given a say. I hope this trend doesn't cont
Bring on the studies! (Score:5, Interesting)
Whose studies to believe? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is you won't turn out to be right or wrong. You'll be both alleged right and alleged wrong because each side will pay for biased studies. It's not that good science is not done, it's that bad science is done, too.
See Ron Rivest's very interesting paper on chaffing [mit.edu] and compare his theory of security through what amounts to a formalized and theoretically sound notion of smokescreen with the way the market is going.
I think in the end it will be something where people make up their minds and we just have to vote and hope. But I would hope we vote for freedom if we're unsure because freedoms lost are hard to get back. There probably is some occasional effect of violence in movies against weak minds, but the effect of lost freedom is not without tangible cost and I weigh the latter more heavily in my own book of public accounting. No scientific survey will ever sort that out.
For most of us, though, video games still come down to choice. Does letting someone pull a trigger not also let them not pull it? Rather than removing violence, maybe we should focus more on seeing the consequence of violence. In the studies I've chosen to believe (heh), the idea of consequence-free violence is closer to the root of problems than the mere choice of violence.
The Sims, for example, is full of ways to torture people to death with no consequence to the player. I might argue that practice, bloodless as it is, was worse than a game with guns that lets you rescue a princess or save a hostage or a nation, which some might argue instills basic values.
And what about movies, which offer no choice but force you to just ride the course. How is this better than sitting in a movie where you want the violence to stop but can't make it stop without leaving the people you came with. At least a video game gives you a choice at each moment.
It might be kinda cool, actually, if some movies were more videogame-like and you could press a button saying "no more of this kind of scene please" and it would dynamically tone things down for either just you or for the whole of an audience if everyone voted likewise... Then seeing the movie multiple times would give you a different experience every time, too, which would be great for the movie houses...
Re:Whose studies to believe? (Score:2)
Soft Sciences (Score:2)
When it comes to video game violence, no doubt increased adrenaline levels will be seen as justification for an outright ban. Despite the fact that such levels could probably be seen after watching a football game.
What we are seeing here is a classic moral panic. Irrational fears
Re:Bring on the studies! (Score:2)
Consistency (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently, watching the Da Vinci Code movie, I marveled at how we have movies that allow PG-13 to contain "disturbing violent images" but only mild sex. There's a lot of sex not in that movie that's in the book. But the violence that was only passing in the book is really graphic in the movie. My conclusion was that the government cares only about limiting sex and not violence. p>
Now I read here that the government cares about violence in video games. Why not in movies?
It's the random way in which the government incoherently stabs us with little points of pain rather than ever creating any notion of consistent policy that troubles me way more than just whether they want ratings on video games or not.
I wouldn't care if they rated all video games heavily for sex and violence, and then left it to the market what to buy. But when they rate some but not all, regulate some but not all, what's the point? The only obvious result I see is the eventual strangulation of all US business by litigation.
Re:Consistency (Score:2)
Because in the movies, you aren't partaking in the violence. So you aren't being encouraged to kill, or maim, and not face consequences. You aren't enjoying killing in movies.
Not that I agree with this stance. I think it's bull shit. I've played violent video games of all sorts since Wolfenstein 3D came out*, including Doom and the Grand Theft Auto games, and I've yet to kill someone. I haven't even been in a fight in ten years, and I was like thirteen then.
Of course, I have also consumed
Re:Consistency (Score:2)
A Clockwork Orange [imdb.com]
Phew. :)
FWIW, I tried this experiment [anotherwayout.com] and it's not all it's cracked up to be. My personal conclusion was that ratings work only because they are vague. The more specific they are
Re:Consistency (Score:2)
Re:Consistency (Score:2)
The MPAA isn't run by the government. It's a volunteer thing. You don't have to rate a movie. Should a movie recieve certain ratings I think there are laws in some places about letting minors in without a parent but that's about the extent of it. The feds don't rate the movies. It happens to be a cartel that is pretty powerful and you'll never get your non-rated movie show
The book is not more sexual than the movie (Score:2)
This would be a great point, if your example were based on fact. Neither the book nor the movie are sexual or terribly violent. The
The ultimate violent video game... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The ultimate violent video game... (Score:2)
That would be because the USA has a massive shortfall in the proportion of its population who can be considered *fit* for military service.
See if you can get a copy of the CIA world fact book pre-2001, find the section on military manpower and population and do some math.
It would appear that the USA has *less* than 1% of its total gross population fit for service.
The worst that any other nation has is
Re:The ultimate violent video game... (Score:2)
It's called the Army's way and nothing else matters. So be a good soldier, shot the bad guys and avoid shooting the civilians on purpose.
Is it an election year? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I guess the Democrats have to find something to do with their time this year. After all, if they couldn't find something to keep themselves busy, they might have to start taking on the Republicans on things like systematic corruption-- or the process whereby the management of federal departments like FEMA or NASA have now been bungled to the point where they might as well not exist at all-- or the handling of a "War on Terror" that's long since stopped being about any actual
What's Illegal? (Score:3)
Re:Is it an election year? (Score:2)
Re:Is it an election year? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that most people would support a political ideology that supports small government, free markets, and civil liberties. However, there are many more reasons why there isn't a lot of L
More of the same = ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Before you go to the hearing (Score:3, Funny)
The last remnants... (Score:5, Funny)
self policing doubl standard (Score:2)
Untill they start jailing parents who take their 7 year olds to an -R- rated movie, they should leave games alone!
What is the opposite of progress? Congress!
Re:self policing doubl standard (Score:2)
When they start jailing parents who take their 7 year olds to see a movie, maybe I'll start going back to the movies again.
Little distracted, are we? (Score:2)
Agreement popup (Score:3, Interesting)
New Tag (Score:2)
Re:New Tag (Score:2)
Phew! Thank God! (Score:5, Funny)
Will make no difference (Score:2)
In other words, exactly what happens with fines for selling cigarretes to minors right now... it doesn't stop dick.
Re:Will make no difference (Score:2)
Amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)
This kind of double standards piss me off. Come on fuckers! Vote em out! Vote em all out! or was the rest of that just bullshit talk because you keep your fucking blinders on when it comes to the democrats? Do you vote on ideals or do you vote on the party line? I think the answer is apparent.
Amazing? I couldn't agree more... (Score:3, Interesting)
Incredible. So sneeringly condescending, yet so naïve...
So many of us would love to vote them out. We would gladly cast votes for candidates who don't propose legislation based entirely on the bleatings of focus groups, and who doesn't put popularity a
movies and games (Score:2)
my question is that when in movies, if it is rated r-18 (restricted as far as it goes for me,) then people watching below the age of 18 are prohibited from doing so. reasons for the restriction may include violence and sex.
for the video game side, people are saying that there should be no rating (or if there is, mature ratings can be sold to young people.)
i'm just baffled as why it is ok for the movies and not ok for the games. it can either be the movies and games both ban sale depending
Re:movies and games (Score:2)
For movies, there is a rating system that theaters and retailers use voluntarily. In other words, at this very moment movies and games are treated exactly the same way in the U.S. Studies have shown that they even have about the same level of enforcement: 65%.
Yet congress is trying to make a law specifically for video games where none exists for any other media. There are already general content laws (specifically obscenity laws) that apply to all media equ
More Grandstanding. (Score:2, Interesting)
the wedge issues:
abortion
race
gay marriage
sex and violence on tv
etc..
they will never go anywhere because there are always large numbers of people representing each side, but theyre nice little red herrings to drag up and grandstand upon during elections.
meanwhile, the real issues get swept under the rug so the incompetent can remain in office.
The party left off the hook (Score:2)
Then they went out and bought games for their kids. They had no idea what the games were, nor did they bother to look at the packages, etc. They just saw the green case and did a double-take at the mocha colored images on the package but then thought that little Johnny was worth it. But they missed the rating that's ALREADY on the box. In the case of GTA: San A
Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be better to protect children from a knowledge-phobic society first.
I hate to miss something, but... (Score:2)
Once generation non-gamer dies off (Score:2)
Live on CSPAN:
John Gilshore: Colorado (D):"To The senator from Maine - YOU'RE SO PWNED! Noob BIATCH - Boom! Headhshot!"
George Crawshank: Maine (R):"I move to censure the camping rocket whore from Colorado"
Coming Soon:GTA(Grand Treason America) Washington (Score:2)
Ignorance (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I know the video games that include violence and sex are rated for not so young people. People that could find the same stuff on tv without any problem anyways.
This witch hunt against video games is as stupid as it can get. I for one do not think that violence in video games causes violence in the real world (else I would be a serial killer) I actually think that it is the opposite, violence in the real world is the cause of violence in video games
Re:Ignorance (Score:2)
The reason video games are targeted is not because Congress is ignorant. It is also not stupid. They know exactly what they are doing [slashdot.org].
Video games are targeted because their proponents are mainly young people who are politically ignorant, non-voting wage-slaves who pay taxes and can only cry like babies when the law singles them out. In WoW, you may be a god, but IRL you are a COPPER-TOP like that slur in The Matrix...
Solution (Score:2)
I have some spices and a large grill ready! We don't want their juicy and tender little souls corrupted by video games. Tut tut, pass the tarter sauce. And don't skimp on the baby back ribs.
Congress hungry for Video Game Lobby Dollars (Score:2)
This is a joke. They think it is a way to beat up on a straw man, and look tough. It is also a red herring for the war, which IS SPONSORING MANY CAMPAIGNS [opensecrets.org].
You should all go join the ACM and support a credible movement for digital freedoms. Also, you [Americans] should all go join a local DFA [dfa-link.com] group so you can pick one of the as**oles closest to you and chip in to get him un-elected. If you sit back and whine, you will force the video game companies to start paying for legislators' political campaigns (to g
ban the Bible instead (Score:3, Interesting)
(I'm only semi-kidding; I think the Bible cannot be banned, and most criminals would be criminal with or without it. But the Bible really is a horrific document and it really has been used to justify more killing that any other single document. And while the Bible contains some parts that promote moral behavior, large parts of it can only be described as abhorrent and reprehensible.)
Re:Democrats and Republicans (Score:5, Interesting)
The "study" will find what they want it to find. (Score:2)
I don't believe so.
... this "study" will find the exact "findings" that the people pushing it want it to find.
The only way to "prove" that would be to take groups of kids and allow certain groups to play "violent" video games while the other kids are not allowed to.
Since we probably won't be doing that
This isn't about any real research into this. Thi
Re:Sports? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also a kid from my area, is a suspect in that lacrosse team rape story you heard about on national news...
I'm in total agreement about sports... and i like sports just the way they are.
Its when we go too far, that things get us in trouble. Thats where parenting comes into play.
Do we laugh at the idea of kicking a baby... I
Re:Sports? (Score:2)
BUT do we actually kick a baby?
You should become a lobbyist. How could anyone not find that a compelling argument?
Re:Good to hear (Score:2, Funny)
Optimist.
KFG
Re:a product is not free speech (Score:3, Insightful)
No products? So books don't count... Whoops, thanks for playing.
Please re-read the text of the First Amendment, it doesn't have a 'unless it's for sale' clause in there.
Re:a product is not free speech (Score:2)
This is, quite possibly, the single most retarded thing I have ever read on slashdot. Thank you, sir.
Re:Dont' Overreact (Score:2)
1. Movie ratings are not the law.
2. Movie ratings are not the law.
3. Movie ratings are not the law.
In fact, hold on...
Movie ratings are not the law. [notthelaw.com]
I don't give a flying crap if the Clinton bill is only a little bit unconstitutional; you might as well think you can be "a little bit pregnant."