Who's ready for more censorship!

[Silcc69]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32641153/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

[hippifried]

That's not censorship. Parents are supposed to be in control of their kids. Censorship would be going back to the bad old days of the FCC telling everybody what content can go over the air or wires.

We've been hearing about V-chips & other parental controls for the last 16 years or so. Where are they? I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about non-existent technology. Everything except radio is digital now. The FCC has the power to compel these companies to make such technology available to the general public. Think about it. I can block individuals on most internet forums. There's a pretty good spam guard on any email service, & I can block individual assholes. I could set my content filter so that I wouldn't even be able to get in here. I can do pay per view on cable or even on the new digital on air TV. I can't filter content coming into my TV or block a pest on my cell phone.

Nobody's trying to reestablish censorship. Michael Powell is gone & the FCC is no longer in the clutches of the self-righteous. They have better things to do anyway, & would rather not have to be dealing with content. But it's almost as if the various communications industries are either begging or daring the FCC to get involved in what can be transmitted. It's a dangerous game, because they can.

[Silcc69]

"We must offer the tools and policies that make it easy for people to be good parents and oversee the viewing that goes on in their homes." Rockefeller said in a statement.

Did u miss that?

[SarahG]

"Parents must have access to control technologies that can appropriately limit their children's exposure to unsuitable material,"

Eh, I think MUST is an excessively strong word here. You can't blame all of society's problems on what kids watch on TV/video games growing up. Time and time again people with an agenda, like the FCC, will try to make that case- and time and time again they fall on their swords with arguments that epically fail to substantiate their arguments. Just look at the whole "doom2 & marilyn mason caused columbine" bullshit and how fatally flawed those arguments panned out to be.

I know families that were very strict in raising kids, and I know families that were very carefree in raising kids. At best it seemed to me to be a crapshoot as to which "method" worked better. If it was as simple as "keep them from seeing porn, keep them from seeing violence" then you'd find all children raised in the same household to end up identical- and yet we see so many siblings that are nothing alike despite having near identical childhoods.

[SarahG]

Censorship would be going back to the bad old days of the FCC telling everybody what content can go over the air or wires.


Wait, "bad old days", as in, the FCC doesn't do that anymore!? :shock:

Unless I am mistaken half the country, and the FCC, went off the wall crazy when one of the Jacksons showed her tits on TV during a sporting event a couple years ago.

We had people crying for months that their lives were permanently ruined by seeing a bare... breast... on live primetime television.

I dare say we've never moved passed the "censor the shit out of the airwaves" (not that I would be able to say that on the air).

[hippifried]

No I didn't miss it. That's the whole point. YOU should be in control over what comes into YOUR home. Options are available, but not to you. Why? That's a rhetorical question. The simple answer is that putting the subscribers or consumers in control over what comes into their homes means a loss of control by the providers, & lowered circulation for the channels & spammers that nobody wants. Providers want to make all parental controls a subscription service. Well... That should probably read "keep" instead of "make". You can have control over your own life as long as you make the monthly payment.

So... How, exactly, are you reading "censorship" into that statement?