[qi:020] The Senate Commerce Committee passed a bill called the Child Safe Viewing Act today. The bill introduced by Senator Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas Arizona) wants FCC to be the nanny not just for television video content but also for content on the Internet. When he introduced the bill, he said:
Today’s technology to protect children from indecency goes above and beyond the capabilities of the V-Chip. And with over 500 channels and video streaming, parents could use a little help.
Now I have no problem with his intentions, because protecting children from nefarious stuff is part of our moral duty. However, the problem is that a Bill like this can be taken out of context and further complications to the already complicated online video world. Adam Thierer, an old pal of ours now at at PFF has published a paper on this issue and for once we are in sync about the ramifications of this bill.
463 Communications partner Sean Garrett puts it best when he writes:
It’s the regulatory creep toward treating Internet and wirelessly delivered video the same as broadcast content.
OM – a general comment. A compliment to you – your editorials of late are refreshing – your new initivates are defintely informative. You are beginning to separate the GigaOM network from the rest of the pack in blogosphere – and you might be leaving the others in the early lead pack sucking dust pretty soon. I won’t mention names, but the bunch in the early pack of must read blogs are all imploding. Good Luck – keep it going!
^^^
I agree. If you want quality over quantity, this blog is one of the few that delivers.
Just a quick little correction. Mark Pryor is the senator in ARkansas not AriZona. Common mistake that only bothers us Arkansans, not that I’m proud of Mark Pryor, but at least he’s better than Huckabee.
“We’re doing it to save the children” is about as meaningful as the “war on drugs” or the “war on terror”. Not a whit.
Protecting children from nefarious stuff may be part of our moral duty, but so is protecting everyone’s freedom of speech.
In an age of virtually infinite channels, I think that it’s impossible to control content the way it was done with broadcast.
That doesn’t mean that children can’t be protected, it just means that it’s the parents’ (gasp!) job to do it, not the government’s!
Yeah, it is a bit disconcerting…Though the readiness with which inappropriate content is available to children is also disconcerting.
It is absolutely not “our moral duty” to protect children from objectionable content. It’s my duty as a parent to protect my own children. Government (or anybody else, for that matter) has absolutely no role to play here.