Canadian TV Now V-Chip Ready 237
nitemayr writes: "The Toronto Star, along with many other publications, report that many Canadian broadcasts are now V-Chip ready. The V-Chip (which I'm sure you will remember) allows viewers to filter television based upon ratings imposed by others. This is a boon to lazy parents everywhere (In Canada) who can now safely lock their 'kidz' in front of the tube without having to worry about them seeing violence or mayhem, unless they watch the news, or a documentary, or almost anything on the CBC (Candadian Broadcast Company)" " Invisible to viewers, the rating code triggers the chip, which turns the television screen to black if the rating is too high." Really.
Re:It WILL be. Just look at movie ratings. (Score:1)
Blockbuster is a bad example, that is corperate censorship. Corperate cencsorship and government cencoship are two totaly different things. Not showing pornography at 5:00pm is government censorship; Not showing a bad review of a business that a network might own is corperate censorship.
Municiple laws really would have no conciquence on national television, it's beyond the scope of a municipality. Often even local cable stations are beyond this scope. You do have the right to write a letter to your local government, changing municiple laws is FAR easier to change than any other law.
Movies are rated by average people. 15-20 people watch the movie and fill out a survey. I assume most non-time critical television would be handed the same way.
When they came for me, noone was left to speak up. (Score:1)
There's one major difference in that comparison. Kids under 18 don't stay that way forever.
If you're black or a woman, you're going to stay that way for the rest of your life (Micheal Jackson not withstanding). Thus it may not matter to you if it takes twenty years to get a marginal increase in rights - after that you still have 30 some years of your life to enjoy those gained rights.
Not so with children. After about 5-10 years they are no longer young anymore, and get all the rights and privaledges of an adult. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man, but if you sat him down and said to him: "Look, you can fight this, and be persecuted, laughed at, mocked and belittled, and possibly not make any progress, or you can just quietly wait five years and you and your friends will get everything you want, just five years later than you might have hoped." Being a rational man, I bet he probably would have chosen option B, because, in the grandsceme of things, five years is a relatively short period of time.
The only caveat I can think of to this is the argument "Why do black people have to wait while white people get them immediately?" And you'd be quite correct. The analogy breaks down there. In fact, it entirely tips on its head. There is a strong "Well we had to do it, so everyone else should too!" mentality in established cultures. This is even evident in Slashdot: witness the "need to learn the CLI"/"need to be able to program in C"/"you're not a real programmer unless you've debugged the kernel" posts that frequently pop up around here. "It was good enough for us, so it's good enough for them!" -> "We had to spend 12 years in abject servatude in Catholic grade school through the depression, so a little disapline will be good for you too. And don't complain because we had it ten times worse!"
It's rather depressing, really. I remember a few years back there was a news segment about a 14 year old boy (who was in school above his level) lobbying to reduce the voting age for teenagers (IIRC, there was some aptitude test involved, so it wouldn't franchise everyone under 18). The rest of the segment completely escapes me now, but the part I remember clearly is this old congressman looking at this young boy and saying "Now you do realize that if this law ever passes, you yourself would be too old to take advantage of it?" - I can't remember how the boy responded, but I do remember thinking that for most people, that would be a fatal argument. Why bother if I can't benefit?
It's happened to me too. In Middle School they were restructuring the way the student body councel was arranged. Basically, eliminating any representation for the younger grades. I spoke out about it, even though I was in the highest grade in the school, and the plan was not even going into effect until after I had moved on. I remember some of my classmates talking to me , wondering why I even cared, as it was not even going to affect me.
Recently too. I'm at a University now, and the administration wants to close down one of the entertainment venues on campus to turn it into more classrooms. I was relating this to my father, who off handedly said "Oh well, you'll be out of there before they start construction, so it really doesn't matter for you."
And it doesn't. But what about all the people who come after me ...
Re:canadian eh? (Score:2)
In any event the possibilities are definately much more frightening than the probability.
Why is this such a big deal? (Score:1)
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
More importantly, the B-chip (Score:2)
*Both* Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo have condemned it as being bad for children and devoid of content. OK, maybe it has a bit of political indoctrination, but that's hardly something I want my kids exposed to. The creator is *proud* and *boasts* that there is *nothing* in there for anyone over four . . .
hawk
Or as a scoring system (Score:2)
Gore (Score:1)
That should make gore films all right.
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Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:1)
Two words: Shark Week.
(for those who don't have Discovery, this is the reasonably regular week where Discovery show nothing but programs about Sharks attacking people in cages, and people telling the story of how they are attacked. You learn one valuable fact from this week of programming - don't go near shark's mouths.)
To be fair, I have seen some quite nice stuff of Discovery too, and UK Horizons (which is a UK cable channel mainly re-running BBC documentaries).
Re:It WILL be. Just look at movie ratings. (Score:1)
(UK ratings http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Guidelin.nsf/Guidel
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Re:The Domino Effect (Score:2)
Re:The Domino Effect (Score:2)
V-Chips technology was invented at SFU.
However it was the US that took the technology & ran with it. Had it remained Canadian it would have sank without a trace.
Nonetheless we have the fine folks of BC to thank.
Peril Sensitive Sunglasses (Score:1)
Paul
Re:Excellent! Self control at last! (Score:2)
Oh, you mean how the US Goverment interferes less with the motion picture industry now that MPAA ratings are in place?
Don't kid yourself.
There are more important questions here, however:
Schwab
Spare Me Your Bleeding Heart.... (Score:1)
(Incidentally, though I have a cable modem for Internet, I don't have cable TV, mostly due to the fact that I object to the content on many of the channels. I just don't want that kind of stuff entering my house. Yes, there's plenty of crap on the Internet, but I'm working on that too.)
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Excellent! (Score:4)
Parents no longer have to feel that irrational guilt that the programs their children are watching might cause them to shoot up their school, or do something equally embarasing to the parents.
Children will discover the joy of learning, as they reprogram the chip (I doubt its much more difficult than getting past a "child-proof" cap, but its still positive reinforcement). They get all the sex and violence as before, only now they don't need to worry their parents might be checking up on them!
So everyone is happy! Until they discover that TV still sucks.
Re:The Domino Effect (Score:1)
I remember reading endless flames on an auto newsgroup back when DRLs were first being proposed and, later, put through in Canada. All the hysteria turned out to be unwarranted, and the improvement in driving safety is marked.
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They don't block what they should... (Score:1)
Ugh, most shows aren't too bad(except Cindy Margolis/Howard Stern Radio Show Program). Many commercials show nearly naked chicks for everything. I mean breasts are used to advertise: bras, tires, beer, computers, movies...
Why would I want my kids exposed to such filth in between otherwise acceptable shows. I mean commercials don't get ratings yet are designed to provoke and shock. These are what should have the ratings, not the shows. At the very least, commercials should be rated.
More complex filtering. (Score:3)
The sad thing is, this kind of selective filtering would be a beautiful feature to have (especially if it replaced the commercials with a nice screen-saver).
The fun thing is that I can see something like this being rigged "ad hoc" when/if programmable TVs come to the masses (be it TIVO-style, with a separate box managing content, or integrated into the television set, or by using a computer with a tuner card instead of a TV). You could figure out what's playing by taking the time of day and your location, or a "signature" based on a hashed few-second excerpt of the show, or both, and firing them off as an anonymous query to a CDDB-style database to find out if it's something you've told it you want to watch or want to filter.
Then have a coding contest to see if you can write a filter that can automatically distinguish between a commercial and your show...
Heck, I even see an easy way to automate public and private database generation and commercial filtering, given a signature-generating algorithm. This is a really nifty problem.
Nobody hasta use it.. (Score:2)
Re:That's very witty. (Score:1)
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Re:Extra information from the Ministry of Truth (Score:2)
First point: censorship is when somebody else tells you what you may or may not experience... when you do it yourself, and can change your mind at any time, how can it be censorship?
Second point: the original poster suggested that instead of just having a simple flag accompanying a broadcast, that the broadcasters include enough information to do meaningful filtering... maybe you don't mind seeing the "violent" content in an action-adventure type of movie, but excessive gore or depictions of of domestic abuse disturb you.
Which brings us to the third point: with extra information and classification of the broadcast, you could tune it to avoid elements you, personally, find distasteful or disturbing. Instead, with the default implmentation of the V-chip, you have to rely on some central authority (a government agency or review board, I'd guess) to decide what content is "good" and what content is "bad".
I'll agree with you on the fact that the V-chip is an attempt at implicit censorship; if you want to use the V-chip at all, you have to buy into the idea that someone else is making your decisions for you. If the capabilities of the V-chip were expanded to allow custom filtering, though, it would be providing the tools that you would need to build a content firewall for your television. It probably wouldn't be a perfect firewall, but it would more accurately represent your desires and preferences than those of some beaureaucrat-for-life.
It's not enough (Score:5)
I'd rather see television shows come with some sort of classification tag, so I could build custom filters to screen out the truly offensive programming on television:
Ultimate control would be hooking this up to a Tivo, and specifying that any blocked content would be replaced by something with greater entertainment value, like Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Re:Canadian Broadcasting Company? (Score:1)
In the last election, actually, I noticed a rather tremendous sympathy for the Conservatives on the CBC (at least, the radio, and This Hour has 22 Minutes, which is pretty much all I see of the Mother Corp's teevee).
I hate that sort of silly argument. You need evidence that the CBC is, in fact, so influenced. In my view, the CBC news does not seem unduly biased in favour of the government: it sure gave J.C. and his merry group a hard time over the pepper spray, for instance. Just because the government could do something does not mean it does. Appealing to the bogeyman of funding is not an argument.
PBS, in fact, takes advertisements. It just doesn't call them that. And it is nothing so much as low-brow highbrow commercial television. Now that A&E has proven it can do the same thing without government money, the reasons for PBS are completely opaque to me. I'm sure the need of YAPPMRC (Yet Another Peter, Paul and Mary Reunion Concert) does not justify PBS.
Re:More complex filtering. (Score:2)
The sad thing is, this kind of selective filtering would be a beautiful feature to have (especially if it replaced the commercials with a nice screen-saver).
I don't know. Some of the commercials are much, much better than the programming.
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This Is Not Censorship (Score:2)
As near as I can tell, NO ONE is squashing the publication or distribution of any content with the v-chip -- except individuals who decide they want to use the thing for themselves and/or their children.
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Re:It WILL be. Just look at movie ratings. (Score:2)
Ratings are just information that people can use to make decisions. The v-chip, right now, is just a technology that automatically carries out a decision, if you decide to use it.
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Danger Blocking Sunglasses (Score:2)
too high." Really.
Has anybody made the obligatory comment about the danger blocking sunglasses from HHGTG?
Reality -- with a rating code!
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A very good thing (Score:2)
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Some food for thought. (Score:2)
If you have an issue with the ratings, you should talk to them, no? They are the ones trusting the ratings.
And if you are a parent (I'll guess you are) then from the sounds of it, you simply won't use it.
Many cable boxes in the US, and all satellite receivers have ratings; TV is just the last to follow. Many many people simply never use it. The v-chip was simply a way to encode the rating in the existing signal cheaply.. nothing more.#
The V-chip takes away NO rights and NO responsibility of parents...parents are not obliged, or even pressured, to use it. That's not taking away anything. It's a choice, like most other thigns parents do.
Yes. (Score:2)
It's not like there's hardcore porn, but that's somewhat a different issue. Naked people abound, even in commercials. It's no biggie here.. no biggie at all. People get more worked up about violence. As it should be.
The TV is actually better here...
My baby is smarter than me (Score:1)
Black screen good for kids? (Score:2)
First priority for filtering (Score:1)
What chance of that ?
Re:That's very witty. (Score:1)
You obviously don't believe your children are disciplined enough to watch the television programs you have deemed suitable while you are sbsent, so I must ask, who is supervising your children during those four hours? If you have a sitter, then obviously they're the one that must magically hide the "OFF" button. If you don't have a sitter then your kids could do a lot worse than sitting down and watching four hours of tv. If your kids aren't mature enough to watch tv responsibly by themselves then you're failing in your duty of care in not providing alternative adult supervision.
skribe
The V-Chip is already here (Score:1)
Ye of little faith (Score:1)
"What do you mean your children saw nudity and cursing at 8:30PM on a Monday? Didn't you set your V-Chip? You asked for it, didn't you?"
I say bring it on! I'd love to watch Rated-R movies at 9PM on a national network without being "Edited for content". V-chip set to full censor, no problem.
Imagine the possibilities. No more of this "What about the children" crap, just use the V-chip and your kids won't be able to watch Ginger Lynn in her new 1 hour sex drama - "Sex, Lies, and even more Sex", (Tuesdays on CTV, Rated XXXX - the extra 'x' is for eXcitement)
Get over it (Score:1)
Seems like a good system (Score:3)
I also wonder if they would offer to let parents just screen out one show or so, or maybe allow a few shows. I know my parents (back when I was 5 or so) had selective ideas of what I should watch. They'd much rather say "no, you can't watch MTV" (I was five) than "no, you can't watch shows on the discovery channel that use the word 'sex'".
Your TV already has this. (Score:2)
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
Lets take a look at one of the San Diego shootings. This is a classic case of a teenager that has been picked on his entire life. One day he gets sick of it. He goes to school to end his problems.
I know your thinking that violence would not solve his problems. I can tell you this from personal experience, after YEARS of being picked on, ANYTHING to make it stop is the answer.
Seeing how I am writing this from my school, I will say now that I would absoluteley NEVER do this.
Anyway, to make this relate to the V-Chip thing, I personally think it is a good idea. I am a teenager and have watched every type of disgusting television there is. As a guy that sees himself as a parent, I can honestly say that I would probably use it. I really doubt I would use it to the extent of turning it up very high, but I sure as hell don't ever want my children to be watching Rambo and Invasion USA (still my fav movie but what the hell).
Anyway, my fingers are becomming very numb.
Before anyone gets any ideas about you are some stupid little kid, I am 17. While that may not be a "mature" level for you, I can tell you as a fact I know a lot more about my friends and others my age.
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:4)
No, the proper answer is, "If you don't like the V-chip... don't buy one -- and let the people who want one pay the legitimate market price for it, not the subsidy price generated by forcing it on anyone who buys a new TV."
Face it, you have your hand out just like those folks on welfare you mutter about.
/.
Re:It WILL be. Just look at movie ratings. (Score:2)
Yeah, man, I get your point. But there *is* a reason things like this exist. It's so when I turn on the TV in the morning I sit down to the inane drivel of the morning show, instead of hardcore porn. You have to realize that one extreme is just as bad as another. If I had kids (and we even allowed them to watch TV), I would want to know for *damn* sure that there wasn't going to be stuff on during the times they'd be watching that I'd not want them to see (regardless of whether I "approve" or "disapprove" of it myself). So, yeah, maybe that means I have some chip in the tv that helps me prevent steaming piles of bullshit to be fed to my kids brains. In some European countries, they don't even allow *advertising* during any kids shows. Call me fascist, but I sure would like to outlaw that brainwashing crap at least during *kids shows*. The point is, it is a balancing act, and one has to draw the line carefully. Don't think I don't know or am not disgusted with moral supremicists tell me what I can or can't (or should or shouldn't) watch. It's just a matter of drawing the line correctly. Nothing is black and white. Here's a question for you: would you rather have optional ratings that you could use in combination with some chip to opt out of programs, or would you rather, as you describe, have TV stations themselves decide what they will pump to your TV? I'd rather have the former.
Anyway, there is an easy solution to all of this. Don't watch TV (or use your VCR and give the middle finger to DMCA, etc). Don't buy Hollywood hype (um, isn't that the evil MPAA *anyway*?).
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
Ok then: *American* television programming is inherently bad. It's a bunch of mindless, consumerist corporatist drivel. It's great that you get all that nice stuff up in Canada, but in the US $20 basic cable just gets you the basic pop crap. The only thing I watch these days is PBS (and CSPAN, god help me), and PBS is going corporate more every day.
"what's the message you're sending to your children then? Reliance/trust in technology and government ratings over developing their own critical viewing skills?"
The message is: I will not let you become a brainwashed consumer zombie until you develop reasoning skills. I hope they really declare TV as a risk for Alzheimer's (I think there is a study going on)...it is really soul-robbing mindnumbing shit (oh, unless you can shell out $50+/mo for quality programming).
Re: (Score:2)
Self-mposed censorship (Score:2)
Parents have been dumping kids in front of TV sets for ages... this way there's some rating, which is better than none (as far as little kids are concerned). I doubt that parents who have watched tv with their kids are going to be the ones who use this... it will be the parents who ignored what their kids were doing. So at least there'd be some restriction as to what kids get to see.
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Re:Insightful? (Score:2)
Depending on the story, that's true...
Did you know that Slashdot is censored? It's true. People who you have never met in person are controlling which stories you can see on Slashdot.
(in case you don't get it and decide to label me a troll, I'll make it obvious: CmdrTaco can reject any story he doesn't like)
As a parent, the V-Chip is worthless to me (Score:3)
Why is the V-Chip worthless to me? For the same reason that movie ratings are worthless:
- I may (and probably will) disagree with the ratings applied to any given item
- I have no control over what content will have the rating applied.
What it comes down to is that, as a parent, I still have to make all the same parenting decisions whether I use the V-Chip or not. If that's the case, then there's clearly no benefit. And if there's no benefit, what is it for?!Thus, I steer my children to books (and physical activity, what a concept!) and limit their TV and movie watching. Even "kid movies" are often subjected to pre-viewing by my wife or I, or at least a very trusted relative, because a lot of the "kid movies" are full of garbage that we don't want to become part of our kids' world views.
Re:Random thoughts from a parent (Score:2)
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Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
I have to agree with you here. When used correctly "saftey" devices are an effective aid to good parents. It isn't beneficial to childern to be fully supervised 24x7 by their parents. Tools like this make it possible for parents to allow children to learn to make decisions for themselves in an environment where they are less likely to make a "wrong" decision. Being a good parent isn't about making all of your kids decisions for them it's about showing them how to make the right decisions on their own. Using a V-chip gives the parent the ability to let their children choose which programs they wish to watch and learn some independence while still making it difficult to make bad decisions.
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Re:How is wanting some technological irresponsible (Score:2)
Parents cannot hang over their children 24 hours a day, so we fall to the "tribe" mentality of watching our kids: The tribe puts signals stating the level of violence/nudity/profanity/etc
This statement is really pointing out the core of the issue. I agree with you, the V-Chip is an excelent tool for parents. Here's my problem, these raiting are being set by some ratings board somewhere. We have deemed these people to be our tribal elders so to speak.
These people are so out to lunch it makes me sick. Here's an example, I watched a story on The Power Rangers a little while ago, (I think it was on Newsworld) they had a couple of 8 year old boys sit down and watch an episode of the show. Almost instantly they were praticing the super cool kicks they had learned, aiming roughly at eachother's teeth. Now boys will do this, I did it enough when I was a kid but I also got hurt a few times. I think this is a bad thing.
The example you give above of the overweight naked women illustrates my point. I would be a whole lot happier with kids watching that than I would Power Rangers or WWF. You can be damn sure I can't configure my V-Chip to lock out stuff that I think is inapropriate, I am delegating this resposibilty to people that I personally think are twits. That scares me.
canada vs. china (Score:3)
Canadian Television for Parents who are too busy to be parents. Seriously,
the possibility for abuse of such a system by those in control of it far outweighs
any perceived gains. In reality does it do anything more than allow a parent
to ignore their children just that much more? Gosh, I didnt know johnny was
building pipe bombs, i thought he was safely plastered to the tube with nary
an evil thought allowed to enter his innocent little head, eh. What we need
isnt content 'safeguards' what we need is parents to sit down with their
children and teach them right and wrong. Dont expect little sally to get her
morals from 90210 reruns, and fashion tips from britney spears.
just my $.02
Re:Extra information (Score:2)
Really? I don't think so. The more people there are who use it, the more screwed up it will be. Ten million people will not be able to agree on something more than one million people will.
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Lord Nimon
good use for a V-Chip? (Score:2)
i live in Canada, and while i have no kids to worry about, i'm wondering: can you use an inverse V-Chip? that is, can you get a set that will only show you which programs are showing porn at that time? it would be great to limit my remote to only those six stations.
- j
Ads rated? (Score:2)
Flamebait (Score:2)
The writer of the comment is probably a 19-year-old living in mommys basement resentful at his parents having to work fulltime to support him. People have to have jobs in order to put food on the table. Television is not necessarily bad. Growing up I watched a fair bit of it. There were some great shows on TV that I learned a lot from. Luckily for me, and my parents, I grew up in a country where the content on TV was fairly limited and almost entirely non-violent and non-sexual.
However, a lot of popular programming on TV projects a vision of reality which is far from the truth. Shooting people dead and blowing buildings up are made to seem like routine everyday incidents in several of those shows. If I were a parent, I'd like to screen this crap from my children until they are old enough to realize it for what it's worth.
"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
I bet the author is something like 21 with no kids and some wacko idea of what it is like to be a parent these days. Slashdot is so sickingly liberal, and is inhabited by people who, for the most part, are kids in college or young adults who don't have kids of their own.
That means most of you do not have any clue what it means to be a parent today.
Trust me *boys*....the older you get the more conservative you will become, and all of the nonsense the higher educational system imparts on you will quickly fade.
TV is bad. It is mind numbing entertainment and in this house it is on for about 1 hour a day. Both of my kids have been taught that tv is not good for them.
But to say that the V-chip is bad just because some outside organization rates a show, and you might think that a 13 year old should be exposed to just about anything for the experience, or, probably so you can win some sort of dysfunctional free speech argument, I only need to point to a few infamous locations here in the US to dispute your argument....lets start with Columbine high school in Colorado. Lets then move on down to San Diego. You know...thats where teenagers are blowing other teenagers away faster then aDuke Nukem can say "Damn I'm looking good".
If you don't like the V-chip...turn YOURS off. Leave MINE alone you hypocritical free expression at all costs liberal! Hollywood is fascinated with violence and it is simply not good for our kids to be continually immersed in it. If the phone rings and I am out of the room for 15 minutes, I would appreciate a TV with a V-chip and you can bet I would have it dialed down pretty low!
Re:Insightful? Not... (Score:2)
".. but the sad truth is that parents *choose* to let children watch a lot of TV, likely because they themselves were brought up wathing a lot of TV and can't get outside the system long enough to see how ludicrous is all is..."
"And no one would deny that simply blocking a whole ton of content by encouraging mindless tv watching over the various means children have a amused and educated themselves over millions of years without rhyme or reason is wrong and no excuse for parenting."
"So I'm not gong to let my child go through life with blinders on, everyone else watches 10 hours of tv a day, so I'm going to do my part to make sure my kid watches 10 hours a day to, so he can have the same blinders as his peers, and in fact myself..."
"But when he's seeing the violence, gratuitous sexual content, and drug users and thieves being glorified, and cops being made out to look like idiots, then I want to be there to legitimize the notion that his amazing machine of a body is made for nothing but sitting down and pressing buttons on a remote."
Will you also mention that people who sit around watching tv all day eat more junk, get alzhiemers (sp) disease more often, get less excerise and die of an early heart attack while dripping kfc down the front of their shirt, eyes focused tightly on the 60hz flicking image of the celebrity of the moment?
I may have been trolled, but I'm sure enough people think like this anyways. Turn off the TV, open your eyes, and walk outside. If you don't like what you see, start walking and don't stop until you do. Take your kids with you. We'll all be better for people waking up from their media induced comas.
Good luck.
Re:Insightful? Not... (Score:2)
I used to be ambivelant about whether prospective roommates of mine had tv's or not, until I realized that with a tube in the house, I became a total addict (CNN/Discovery/TLC etc). So I went cold turkey, and I won't room w/anyone w/a tv, and I don't miss it.
l8r
But the argument is still ridiculous (Score:2)
The fact is that, while I spend a lot more time with my son than most fathers, you can't be with them every second of every day they have access to the television. It's not that I want to see him grow up blind to reality, but that I want to be there when he sees stuff on television so it can be discussed.
The problem is that kids get home from school before you get home from work. They wake up earlier on weekends, they get a lot more time off for vacations. Now, I'd prefer my son not watch a lot of television, but he is going to watch some amount of television, and some of that will be when neither parent is available.
So why can't I choose to enable the v-chip to block questionable content when I'm not going to be there? There are also channels that very young children should just not have access to, and I certainly wouldn't want one popping up accidentally while channel surfing.
V-Chip does not replace parenting, and there are few parents naive enough to think that their kids won't have access to questionable material (be it on television, the web, magazines, or whatever else comes along), but shouldn't we do what little we can when we can do it?
I know I'm on the older side of the slashdot readers, but I also want to add that there is a lot of parent slamming that goes on here. A lot of parents deserve it, but the vast majority of parents are a lot smarter than kids give them credit for, and most of them are reasonable - it's not a black and white, all or nothing argument (like netfilters). It's a gray issue - with most parents falling in the middle of the bell curve. Anyone who enables a v-chip blocking for all the channels and never turns it off, or those who don't mind what their kids see on television at all fall at the extremes. Sometimes it might be appropriate to use, sometimes not. No one says, and most would agree, it's not a substitute for parenting, it's just another tool to help teach our kids. No, not teaching by blocking content, but teaching by enabling us to be there when the content is viewed so it can be discussed, if need be.
You don't have to use it (Score:2)
That being said, it shouldn't be a substitute for parenting.
But it's nice to have the option.
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Re:But the argument is still ridiculous (Score:2)
Rich
Re:But the argument is still ridiculous (Score:2)
You may not notice it so much, your views may coincide with those of the ratings people but mine don't. I feel there is too much violence on TV and that sex is overly censored. I also have problems that scenes where people are shot, bleed and die are considered less acceptable than scenes where bullets are sprayed about like confetti and noone gets a scratch (A team style). And you can bet the God channels will be let through and I consider some of them the most disturbing of all.
Can you see the angle I'm coming from? This V-chip is all very good for letting me apply other peoples values to my children but where's the ability to apply mine?
For a V-chip to be acceptable, it would need a much greater level of configurability and programability. For example
if(violence But that's too complex for people so we have to go LCD. Well, that's not really acceptable to me.
Rich
Sorry, should have been (Score:2)
But that's too complex for people so we have to go LCD. Well, that's not really acceptable to me.
Rich
Re:It's not enough (Score:2)
Hmm, wonder if Mike Myers read this.
Rich
Re:Gore (Score:2)
Real violence is someone slowly bleeding to death, wondering why it had to end this way. Real violence is someone being beaten to the ground and kicked and kicked, being in a hospital for six months and waking up unable to speak their own name. Real violence is nightmares and waking up screaming for the rest of your life.
There was a movie that was on www.bangedup.com called chech21.mpeg before they shrank their content. It may have been fake but it looked real. It was presumably from the chechnian conflict that was going on in Russia a while back. It shows a soldier prone on the ground, another soldier has his boot pushing the prone soldier's face into the ground. He draws out his knife and pushes it into the prone soldiers kneck. He then begins to saw through to the front of the neck. The prone soldier coughs, choking on his blood as he dies. He problably has family, maybe children at home hoping they'll see him again soon.
That is real violence
Rich
Re:Censorship vs. Responsibility (Score:2)
Whereas the North doesn't need this of course, already having managed to convince people that the civil war was about slavery and not state rights.
People, the civil war was about an imperialistic federal government forcing it's agenda on and over the constitutionally protected rights of the individual States.
The losers in the civil war were the citizens of the United States of America, the winners was the federal government. Remember which side was which next time Washington DC tells your state to install content filters in your libraries.
Rich
Disclaimer: I do not support slavery in any way or form
Re:How is wanting some technological irresponsible (Score:2)
that's the scary thing. We haven't. They have deemed themselves to have opinions so important that the rest of the world should abide by them.
Throw a few random Joes and Joans in there and it would probably be a bit more reasonable. Unfortunately, we're getting the extremists.
Rich
Re:How is wanting some technological irresponsible (Score:2)
It's the old forbidden fruit thing. When kids are told not to do things, it raises their curiosity. Now, I don't advocate giving a two year old a gun to play with to get it out of their system but you have to wonder.
For example, I myself am 30. Last week, I was going to get a chance to handle a chainsaw for the first time. Now, I've played doom, all that cool destructive power and loud as well. Well, comes to it, you pull the trigger, it saws through wood. No big deal. But the point is that my expectation way exceeded the experience. I think we forget this when we tell children not to do things which seem mundane (if slightly dangerous) to ourselves.
Rich
Re:Although I am not in favor of the v-chip (Score:2)
Re:It's not enough (Score:5)
"This scene *should* be very affecting. It goes to Joe's Theory of Violence on TV. To wit...that we need more of it, but it has to be realistic violence. It has to show consequences. You glorify or desensitize violence when you shoot somebody, and they just go down, no yelling in pain, no sobbing as their guts fall out onto the street. It's just gunfire, loud noises, excitement and fun. If you're going to show violence, then show it for what it *is*, and show it the way people would react to it. Make the audience understand that this is a *person*, not one in a series of body counts."
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/050.html
Re:Logic, where art ye? (Score:2)
V-Chip unreliable (Score:2)
Re:Do you know what this means???? (Score:2)
Censorship is not always wrong... (Score:2)
My 6-year-old is not ready to see Saving Private Ryan, and I will be censoring him with regard to that and many other movies for several years. As he matures, I will relax my restrictions, and provide as much guidance as I can. By the time my son is grown and on his own, I will have done my best to prepare him to make good adult decisions.
So parents, censor away! It is your right, and your obligation. Just remember you have a deadline for getting in all the education you can, after which your grown kids will be on their own.
Re:Random thoughts from a parent (Score:2)
My ideal would be to have zero government expenditure, at all levels from city to federal, that is not truly a "public good." On my short list of public goods are national defense, roads, courts, police and fire services, and...well, I can't think of much else right now, but I am sure there are some more. Oh, and I am willing to entertain any arguments that we could get along without even some of the ones I mention.
Random thoughts from a parent (Score:4)
That leads me to to something another poster said in this thread, but which is worth repeating. The problem is not the V-chip itself, but the mandating of the V-chip. I wouldn't mind having another tool in my parenting efforts, but others should not have to subsidize my parenting by buying V-chips they don't want.
Hold it right there, partner. It is a bit of a stretch to blame TV for animals who blow away innocent human beings. Those shooters had other problems, some including parents who didn't notice they were making pipe bombs in the garage. I challenge you to show that a V-chip would have made one iota of difference in any of those cases.Re:Bill Clinton. (Score:2)
(Nice troll, BTW. Can we get a Godwin-equivalent law for Bill Clinton?)
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Real reasons for the chip (Score:2)
Well it could be a forerunner to the real technology they want to deploy.
1. Forcing the chip to block any content worse than an MPAA "R" Rating. They can make it illegal for Canadians to broadcast such material, but that won't stop US broadcasters, some of whose signals can be picked up in Canada.
2. Log how many shows watched are "bad", and a history of what the rating threshold has been set to. If there is ever a custody fight or allegations of bad parenting, the courts can come and take your children away if they see a lot of "bad" stuff being watched or the rating threshold being too high.
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
But if I can make a logical assumption from your nickname, you like to play quake, and you like to play it a lot.
So aren't you therefore letting your children know that simulating killing people is okay?
All you've done is replaced one 'evil' with another.
And television is not just mind numbing entertainment. Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel are two very good channels. You actually get to learn 'stuff' from watching them. Comedy Channel isn't bad either. But from your take on this, you just might not like humour.
And why have you taught your children that television isn't good for them? Soemthing to do with all the violence? Well, if that's the case, you should go into their school and force them to stop learning history. Because the world's history is filled with it. Hell, you should go into their English classes and stop them from learning great works of literature like MacBeth and Hamlet because they are filled with violence as well.
You know what, why don't you go lock your children up in the basement until they're 80. It will be much better for them. In your eyes, anyway!
I'd prefer a channel lockout (Score:2)
If I were a parent, I'd prefer to have a mechanism that locks out certain channels, rather than the V-chip. I would find it much easier that way, to keep track of what shows my children have access to.
Seems like an obvious thing, so I wouldn't be suprised if such a TV exists, but then, I've never seen one.
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It WILL be. Just look at movie ratings. (Score:5)
I fully expect TV to do the same. It'll start off slowly, e.g., no TV-MA programs allowed on the air before 9:00pm, then it'll be no TV-PG or higher rated programming during "kids time slots", then some things will be restricted to 2:00-5:00am only. Then, "since no one is watching this" and "it's no longer profitable to the TV station", programs with too strong a rating will be dropped all together, by the TV station's choice. Then, once people are "used to this stuff not airing", it won't be hard to pass legislation to keep it from ever returning to the air waves.
You wait and see. This is how it goes. Why isn't any asking who is doing this "rating" anyway? DOn't you wonder?
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
This reminds me of a news soundbite about one of the recent school shooters: "Even the picked-on kids picked on him."
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:3)
I wonder about people who teach their children that a medium is inherently bad. TV is not just about entertainment. I live in Canada and for < CAN$20/mo on satellite, I'm able to watch the Discovery Channel, The Knowledge Network, two PBS stations, the CBC, etc. This goes beyond entertainment -- it's educational and interesting and thought-provoking. As an example, I recently got to relive Carl Sagan's Cosmos Series (on PBS, I think) -- back in its day, that TV show was so awe-inspiring to me and helped drive me to study science. (I'm in my 30s now.) There was great TV way back then and there's great TV now. World history, war documentaries, Bill Moyers, Scientific American, Nova, BBC News -- all those shows were on tonight. None of those are particularly entertaining or mind-numbing in my opinion.
My point is this... sure, those shows will probably pass thru the V-Chip, but what's the message you're sending to your children then? Reliance/trust in technology and government ratings over developing their own critical viewing skills? Will the V-Chip or ingrained TV-prejudice protect them when they catch a glimpse of forbidden programs on the TV at the mall or a friend's house or in their college dorm? Better hope so...
Re:The Domino Effect (Score:2)
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
No one single thing caused Columbine. Human motivation is a complex thing. Probably hundreds, if not thousands, of different experiences that Klebold and Harris had contributed to their actions, and no single one is solely responsible.
I understand people's desire to have things all wrapped up in a neat tidy package, and be able to simply say "X caused Columbine" and be done with it. However, wishing that a thing were true does not make it true, and there is no one single influence that can be blamed for Columbine, no matter how much we want there to be.
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:2)
Maybe I did. But I think you've missed mine as well. :)
By saying that, for instance, ultra-violent media does not influence certain kids to act out aggressively - you've wrapped up into a neat tidy little package what doesn't cause Columbines.
I did not mean to imply that violent TV or video games may not have been among the many causes of Columbine and similar school shootings. They may well have been.
I also did not mean to imply that, if you as a parent find the V-chip or filtering software an appropriate way to control what your children see, that you should not be allowed to use it. While I have serious qualms about the ability of the V-chip or filtering software to do what they claim, I acknowledge your right as a parent to use them if you wish.
What I do have a problem with is government requirements to install V-chips in all televisions or filtering software on all computers. To have the choice to buy a TV with a V-chip is a good thing, in my mind; to not have the choice to buy a TV without a V-chip is a bad thing.
My other problem is with people who suggest that, because some children may be badly influenced by violent video games or violent television, all children should be prohibited from seeing them. To make an analogy: most adults drink alcoholic beverages responsibly, but there is a minority who do not. In fact, thousands of Americans are killed every year by people who abuse alcohol. This is not just the possibility of potential damage--this is a well-known fact! Yet, when we tried banning alcoholic beverages because there were some adults who could not enjoy them responsibly, we found that the "cure" was far worse than the disease. I am not eager to repeat that experiment by banning violent television or video games.
Re:"lazy parents everywhere " (Score:3)
You almost had me. I didn't realize you were a troll, until:
I only need to point to a few infamous locations here in the US to dispute your argument....lets start with Columbine high school in Colorado.
I propose that for the 21st century, the "Nazis" in Godwin's law [science.uva.nl] should be replaced by "Columbine." It seems that anytime anyone doesn't like something, it's become traditional to blame Columbine on that thing. "British beef caused the Columbine tragedy! Chinese spies caused the Columbine tragedy! American television caused the Columbine tragedy!"
Leave MINE alone you hypocritical free expression at all costs liberal!
Liberal? Now I know you're trolling. Liberals are just as happy to be censors as conservatives are.
Baby Hackers! (Score:3)
Although I am not in favor of the v-chip (Score:2)
The Domino Effect (Score:3)
I'm assuming that Canada uses the same television standard as at least one other country. Many manufactuers likely would consider it less expensive to put these chips in *all* of their televisions rather than making specialized additions for Canada.
As a case in point, consider newer automobiles which have their headlights on all the time. Only a few locations (all of Canada and the state of Florida I believe) require headlights to be on continuously. But instead of making specialized vehicles for these locations, automobile manufactuers added the feature to most if not all of their lineup. To consumers, having headlights on during the daytime is advertised as a "safety feature." You see dozens of these cars during a trip on any major roadway in the United States.
When one country accepts these televisions for their additional functions, it allows any other country that wants this technology to easily lap it up. Only the broadcast end of systems will need to be changed. It becomes real easy for someone to turn on things "at the flick of a switch" when the masses already have it in front of them.
(Personally, I believe parents should watch what their kids are doing, and not rely on any regulatory or industry body to do so. Rating and censoring products should only be used as tools, and parents must be able to disable these quickly should said products go astray from *their* beliefs, not the original rater's!)
How is wanting some technological irresponsible? (Score:2)
What's with all the armchair "parents" with their opinions on responsible parenting? (More likely 15 year olds fearful that they might have to live under their parents rules) Parents cannot hang over their children 24 hours a day, so we fall to the "tribe" mentality of watching our kids: The tribe puts signals stating the level of violence/nudity/profanity/etc. and we, being responsible configure our television to block it. I completely fail to see how this could be irresponsible, and presuming that this is in lieu of proper parenting is absurd: It's yet another parenting tool. It isn't the cure for Columbines nor will it ensure a better generation, but if you can give parents that control and they're the one's paying the bills and running the show, so be it.
Television (esp. with cable) has gotten much more risque than it was 15 years ago. The other day I was flipping through the channels and City TV (a Toronto station that single handedly changed Canadian standards) was showing full nudity of 300lb women. I'm sure there are a lot of GoatSexers out there who would love that, and I'm not even saying it's bad from a moral or teaching perspective (i.e. I personally have no problem with shows like SexTV and think inevitably your children will seek out this info as Sex is a rather basic human instinct), but parents should have the ability to monitor and control if the technology does exist. Don't brand them as irresponsible because they want this ability.
Re:So? (Score:2)
More options - yes. If used properly this V-chip will help parents control what shows their kids watch (to reenforce values on right/wrong). But if parents use it as a replacement for talking to their kids, it will cause more youth violence, or at least not help reduce violence.
People would start to realize - not if trends are the same as in the U.S. After a school shooting happens, parents demand more controls. After all, those deranged sickos must not have had the V-chip turned on in their TVs. And the internet must be corrupting them too. Let's ban that also. TV, movies, internet, music, what's next, books? The V-chip will not be attacked until every "unprotected" communications medium is controlled.
It's not like anyone under 18 has rights anyway - and it will stay like that until people under 18 start demanding their rights. The same was true for racial minorities and women in the US less than 50 years ago, albeit on a larger scale.
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Re:Seems like a good system (Score:4)
Homer Simpson: Hey, what gives? I thought you had a satellite dish.
Homer clicks the remote several times, sees nothing but dead air
Ned Flanders: Sure dodilly-do. Over 230 channels...looocked out!
Re:It WILL be. Just look at movie ratings. (Score:2)
Do you know what this means???? (Score:2)
If people want the right to limit their childs viewing habits then what's the big deal?? This could always be done by blocking certain channels anyways.
There are other and better ways to learn about the world if your afraid some poor child will miss some important documentary about the Holocaust or something, it's called a book.
Extra information (Score:2)
If TV networks want to broadcast this extra information and add a service to their broadcast for the use of consumers, that's fine.
I warn all the slashdotters that want to quash this technology that in many other cases you are fanatically supportive of including more information in media. "Information wants to be free."
The screening technology is not very accurate right now, or maybe it doesn't reflect your libertarian social mores. But the more people use it, the more refined it will be.
Multiple ratings systems using a variety of rubrics might be useful. Christian groups can develop ratings systems based on their beliefs, and Muslim groups can develop theirs. This gives viewers more control over what they watch, not less.
It's not rated by "volunteers" in Canada (Score:2)
I know for a fact that Muchmusic does a similar type of panel for music videos they will air. They review potential videos for extreme violence, violence against women, and unnecessary sexual content. The US equivalent, MTV, generally only scans for nudity and sex. An example is a Duran Duran video from about 3-4 years ago. It featured a robot woman who serviced the band's fantasies. Both music stations had complaints about the video and requested the band clean it up. But while Muchmusic was concerned about how women were portrayed in the video, and what message it was sending viewers, MTV only wanted the woman's ass covered up a bit more. It just shows the major differences in attitudes between Canada and the US when it comes to media ratings.
Noone forces you to use it? (Score:3)
Those of us that can think for ourselves, and are well over 18 and therefore not going to be influenced by this chip directly, still have problems with it. Look at it this way: do we honestly want an entire generation of children raised who have all their entertainment/information censored the same way? I remember Catcher in the Rye (considered to be a true literary classic nowadays) being banned when I was in school, and the line back then was "It doesn't affect you, we're saving the children, butt out". Sorry, but parent or no, I have an obligation to society to make sure we don't tread the same path that historically we've walked so many times before.
Book bannings, TV censorship, Internet filtering, 'adults' sections in the library, 'appropriate for women' topics of conversation, segregated schools.... Sorry, but 1790 or 2001, I don't see much difference between any of this. And this isn't just some 'information wants to be free' rant. However, when we choose to restrict it, suddenly we're all relying on a select group of people's opinions to dictate our own?
Not to indulge in hyperbole, but 1984 was based in the UK, and was not really an anti-communism rant like so many people take it to be. Orwell's entire point is that this could happen to us, and we're as likely as not to invite it in ourselves.
Censorship vs. Responsibility (Score:2)
The problem with censorship is who decides what is in and what is out. Child pornography? 99.99% of the population would agree that this is objectionable, but the dangers lie at the boundaries on objectionality. I am sure that is some parts of the southern U.S. a v-chip would soon enough screen out programs that delt with religiously controversial issues, or the history of slavery, the list goes on... I'm not beating up on the south, every culture has its problems. We (in the west) like to point at communist countries and scream "Big Brother", but we may allow the same level of information control to develop under our noses.
What is needed is a level of maturity, and responsibility on the part of parents and guardians. We wouldn't let our young children wander through an x-rated or brothel district unescorted, yet we seem to think that when the media is electronic, 'content control' becomes someone else's problem. Parents should be prepared to either supervise their children, or deal with the fact that kids are going to discover things we might want to hide from them.
We almost deserve v-chips - it is the price we are paying for 30 years of parental laziness...
-- Coding is art, I'm a surrealist
Re:Extra information from the Ministry of Truth (Score:2)