It seems They cant go a year without trying to censor all media at the behest of their selfish corporate "friends"
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081005-senate-wants-fcc-to-conduct-advanced-blocking-study.htmlThe United States Senate has unanimously passed a bill that requires the Federal Communications Commission to explore what "advanced blocking technologies" are available to parents to help filter out "indecent or objectionable programming." The "Child Safe Viewing Act" (S. 602) was sponsored by Senator Mark Pryor, Democrat of Arkansas.
"With over 500 channels and video streaming, parents could use a little help monitoring what their kids watch when they are not in the room," Pryor said in a press statement following the passage on Wednesday. "Today’s technology to protect children from indecency goes above and beyond the capabilities of the V-Chip. It’s time for the FCC to take a fresh look at how the market can empower parents with more tools to choose appropriate programming for their children."
The text of the bill observes that "99.9 percent of all consumer complaints logged by the Federal Communications Commission in the first quarter of 2006 regarding radio and television broadcasting were because of obscenity, indecency, and profanity." Many of those complaints are controversial, it should be noted, because they come from Web based autoforms that allow people who have not actually seen a program to file a complaint.
It asks the FCC to focus the inquiry on blocking systems for a "wide variety of distribution platforms," including wireless and Internet, and an array of devices, including DVD players, set top boxes, and wireless applications.
What I cant understand is why dont they use this proposed filtering technology to stop people making false complaints, after all that is surely the most unacceptable reason to act
This looks like yet another big business friendly bill that will use the cover of stopping little jonny hearing profanity at home (thus creating a culture shock for him when he gets older and steps out of the home), to create an artificial monopoly for the content industry, why cant the FCC just be honest.
