Taiwan Nannies Rule: Parents Can't Decide How Much Time Their Kids Spend With Electronics

from the mama-government dept

The nanny-state arms race marches on, apparently. Whereas the previous intersection of overbearing government and technology has resulted in politicians attempting to ban the use of headphones while walking across the street, governments introducing all manner of silly policies in the name of "protecting the children", and even municipalities attempting to run psy-ops on citizens to keep them from smoking, Taiwan appears to be taking an even more direct approach with plans to fine the parents of children the government has deemed spend too much time with electronics.

Under rules passed last Friday by Taiwanese politicians, children under the age of two should be completely banned from using electronic devices, Xinhua, China's official news agency reported. Meanwhile under-18s should not be allowed to "constantly use electronic products for a period of time that is not reasonable". It means electronic products are now listed alongside cigarettes and alcohol as potentially dangerous vices.

And you can see their point, assuming you're a crazy person. Because electronics are tools primarily of communication and productivity, even if they're also used for entertainment, and government intrusion on young people's ability to communicate, learn, and be entertained is so far removed from alcohol and tobacco that one wonders how the argument was made with a straight face to begin with. The prospective "too much time" part of this legal equation has yet to be ironed out, but the brainchild for the law is, shall we say, more than slightly aggressive on the topic.

The new regulation is the brainchild of Lu Shiow-yen, a Taiwanese member of parliament who said his intention was to protect young people by stopping them using electronic devices for more than 30 minutes at a time. Parents who break the rules can be hit with fines of up to about £1,000 although it remains unclear how authorities will determine what amount of time is unreasonable.

There's a million reasons why this is stupid, but I'll boil it down to one specific reason: baseball. Baseball is huge in Taiwan. Baseball is enjoyed primarily on television and streaming electronic devices. And baseball, for all its wonderful aspects, takes roughly as much time as it takes for a mountain to form in the Nebraska prairie. Thirty-minute stretches of time as a limit effectively outlaws youngsters watching baseball. Put in that context, and really any other context, these sorts of artificial limitations on the electronics that dominate our lives (in a good way) are ludicrous.

Expect either the backlash here to be huge, or the law to go largely ignored. Either way, this is a political non-starter.

Filed Under: children, devices, electronics, kids, nanny state, parents, screen time, taiwan

Dangerous Rulings: Georgia Court Says Parents May Be Liable For What Their Kids Post On Facebook

from the bad-ideas dept

A Georgia appeals court has said that parents of a 7th grader can be held liable for what their son posted on Facebook. At issue is a Facebook post where the son created a fake Facebook profile of a classmate of his, posting distorted images of her to make her look fat (ah, junior high schoolers...) and then including "profane and sexually explicit comments on the page depicting her as racist and promiscuous." Alerted to this, the kid's school suspended him, and his parents grounded him. However, the Facebook page stayed up for 11 months. The parents of the girl then sued the parents of the boy, claiming that they had "breached a duty to supervise their child's use of a computer and an Internet account" and, further, that they had "breached a duty to remove defamatory content existing on their property." The court rejected that second argument, but found the first argument at least reasonable enough to proceed to a jury.

Part of the issue is that, after finding out about the fake page, the boy's parents, beyond grounding him, didn't look into what the page was, and where it was. The court argues that this could be negligent, because having been informed of the problematic page their son created, they may have had a responsibility to then monitor that page.

In this case, it is undisputed that Dustin used a computer and access to an Internet account improperly, in a way likely to cause harm, and with malicious intent. The Ahearns contend that they had no reason to anticipate that Dustin would engage in that conduct until after he had done so, when they received notice from the school that he had been disciplined for creating the unauthorized Facebook profile. Based on this, they contend that they cannot be held liable for negligently supervising Dustin’s use of the computer and Internet account. The Ahearns’ argument does not take into account that, as Dustin’s parents, they continued to be responsible for supervising Dustin’s use of the computer and Internet after learning that he had created the unauthorized Facebook profile. While it may be true that Alex was harmed, and the tort of defamation had accrued, when even one person viewed the false and offensive postings, it does not follow that the Athearns’ parental duty of reasonable supervision ended with the first publication.

But that seems problematic on any number of levels. There is no indication that the boy continued to post to the page after being disciplined for it. So there wasn't any issue with the parents' ongoing supervision of his computer and internet usage. The idea that they could retroactively be held liable because once they found out about it they only punished him and didn't go further to find and delete the page he created seems awfully troubling. And that's before even getting to the issue of why the liability should be put on the parents anyway. There's this myth out there that parents should supervise any and all computer/internet usage. Not only is that impossible, it's also a bad idea. Yes, parents should help kids learn to use the internet, including some early supervision, but part of learning to do something is learning to do it on your own. That means teaching them about risks and how to deal with them, and encouraging them to ask questions or raise concerns if they find them -- but it shouldn't mean watching over their shoulder every moment online.

This kind of ruling doesn't necessarily mean that parents across Georgia need to immediately start spying on their kids' surfing activities, but it does suggest -- ridiculously -- that upon notification of a problem, they suddenly have a responsibility to monitor and clean up any messes their kids caused. That's very dangerous thinking.

However, there is another interesting angle, which lawyer Marc Randazza has suggested on his blog, that the parents should make use of CDA Section 230 to claim they're immune from liability. Remember, the whole point of CDA 230 is that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." And yet, this ruling effectively holds the parents responsible for the speech of their son. CDA 230 is mostly used to protect service providers from liability, but the law clearly also applies to "users." As Randazza notes:

It is without dispute that the content was provided by another person, namely the son. The son, therefore, is the liable party – not the parents – and under the CDA, any claim to the contrary appears to be barred.

He points to one case, in California that seems at least marginally analogous:

In Delfino v. Agilent Techns. Inc., 145 Cal. App. 4th 790, 806 (2006), the California court of appeals found that when an employee used the employer’s computer network to send threatening messages, the employer was not liable. In that case, the court held that although the defendant-employer merely acted as the provider of the computer system, the plaintiff’s tort claims in essence sought to hold the employer liable for the publication of the threatening messages. Id. Therefore, the employer was immune under § 230.

Randazza further notes, in a footnote, that the rulings in two of Prenda/AF Holdings failed lawsuits, claiming "negligence" for leaving WiFi opened, further reinforce the idea that Section 230 should apply in cases involving things like "negligence" for enabling the actions of others. It's too bad the lawyers for the parents either chose not to raise this argument, or perhaps didn't even realize it was open to them.

Filed Under: appeals court, defamation, georgia, kids, liability, negligence, parents, section 230, social media
Companies: facebook

The NSA's Clearance Rack Goes Public, Offering An Assortment Of Declassified Patents For Use In The Private Sector

from the civil-liberties-fire-sale-still-ongoing dept

All the money being poured into the NSA (under the cover of darkness) over the past several years is paying off. Taxpayers who helped fund the NSA's programs have the opportunity to pay even more money for the privilege of licensing the non-classified fruits of the agency's labor.

So if you're looking to buy a tool to transcribe voice recordings in any language, a foolproof method to tell if someone's touched your phone's SIM card, or a version of email encryption that isn't available on the open market, try the world's most technologically advanced spy agency.

It's called the Technology Transfer Program (TTP), under which the NSA declassifies some of its technologies that it developed for previous operations, patents them, and, if they're swayed by an American company's business plan and nondisclosure agreements, rents them out.

There's actually no "transfer" going on here. Nearly everything in the catalog [pdf link] (with the exception of a few, decidedly unimpressive physical items near the back) is a license, and quite possibly a non-exclusive license at that. (Companies can lock other companies out, but not the government itself, and the catalog notes that licensees will have to relinquish sole control "within a reasonable period of time.") Should the NSA decide it can trust a company with its leftover inventions, it will have an opportunity to utilize stuff most companies don't really need or technology that's hardly state-of-the-art at this point. While some of this could be a potential starting point for bigger and better stuff, most of the offerings are leaving security/cryptology experts underwhelmed.

[Bruce Schneier] was dismissive of the remarkability of the agency's cryptographical offerings. "It's not new, it's very old, a few decades," he said of one product, listed as a Cryptographic Efficient Elliptic Curve.

"It's a way to get your door locks a little bit better. Does that change the value of your house? Kind of, not really," he said. "These are all pieces of plumbing. Plumbing has value, but this is one of the problems of patent law. Patents really overstate the value of plumbing, of technology. It's a little value, sure, but it's never gonna make or break a business."

In some of the released tools, you can see the origins in bulk metadata/communications harvesting. One patented product automatically detects voices in audio recordings. Another deals with creating cryptographic key escrow accounts for "third parties" to access encrypted files. Various data visualization programs separate needles from haystacks, while multiple tools tackle the task of turning virtual reams of text into coherent summaries.

While the NSA is following the spirit of the statute ordering the redistribution of government knowledge, it's probably the agency least likely to declassify anything groundbreaking. The best stuff still remains locked up. One also has to question the timing of this catalog release -- it's offered this service for years, but this is the first time the NSA has ever made the document public. Is this just another stab at rehabilitating its reputation, albeit one approached at a very oblique angle? Someone inside the NSA seems to think so.

The Daily Dot relayed one NSA employee's claim to Schneier, that the TTP was a means of injecting federally-funded research back into the U.S. economy.

Well, only if you take the most generous view of the NSA's scattershot collection of fine licensables. Schneier doesn't take this view.

"Bullshit," he responded. “The NSA's not stimulating the economy. They just said that and it sounds good. They just made that up."

No, it very definitely isn't stimulating the economy, at least not anywhere outside the Beltway. The damage the public disclosures have had on the private tech sector very much outweighs the potential income created by the NSA's mandated return of publicly-funded research and development -- a "return" that isn't a gift but a perpetual license and one that's only available to the companies the NSA chooses to work with.

Filed Under: innovation, nsa, parents, tech transfer

DailyDirt: Comparing US Schools To...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The US education system is constantly being compared to other school systems -- with the underlying theme that the US might copy some of the best practices and put them to use for our kids. Sure, it's good to take a look around and see if there's a better way to teach kids, but some practices might be difficult to adopt (eg. eliminating long summer vacations). Here are just a few links on what we might learn from foreign school systems.

• Japan's education system may teach us that instituting strict standards testing is unproductive. Teaching to the test and similar practices has been blamed for creating a less innovative culture and students who are less prepared to adapt to changes. [url]
• Another suggestion is to pay teachers more, so that teachers have resources and incentives to become better teachers. Countries like South Korea, Singapore and Finland pay their teachers well and provide social prestige for educators. [url]
• The role of American parents in their kids' primary school education differs somewhat widely versus Chinese parents. One big difference seems to be that Chinese parents blame their kids' lack of effort, but American parents more often blame the lack of ability of the child, teacher or school. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: china, education, japan, lessons, parents, schools, south korea, standardized testing, students, teaching, tests

Sports Journalist Gets Trolled On Twitter, Tattles To Troll's Parents

from the this-won't-end-well dept

There's a spectrum of responses in how to deal with internet trolls. On one end, you can give them a nice little golf-clap while mostly ignoring their often-hilarious antics. Somewhere in the middle is when a news organization decides to track the troll down and harrass them in real life in one of those ironic little moments that makes life worth living. Finally, I think we can call sending a SWAT team to respond to an internet troll on the other far end of the spectrum.

So, with that established, I wonder where we'll put Al Trautwig, a sports analyst in New York for the MSG Network, who found himself the target of a troll after he Twitter-typo'd his new co-worker Marty Biron as "Boron."

@AlTrautwig Thought it was an autobiographical tweet and you meant Moron.

— THE Blocknesmonster (@Blocknesmonster) November 13, 2013

That's about what I'd expect from someone with the Twitter handle THE Blocknesmonster. It's neither creative, nor funny, nor particularly memorable or deserving of attention in any way. So you'd figure Trautwig would ignore this lame troll and move on, right? Nah, he called the guy's mom instead.

Al Trautwig apparently found the troll's phone number and called him. Except the troll doesn't live at that number anymore and hasn't for 20 years; he lives in Israel now. So when Al Trautwig creepily tracked down the number for a heckler who called him a moron on Twitter, and called to confront him about it, he spoke to the heckler's mom.

"I get a call from my mother that Al Trautwig just called the house to speak to me because I wrote something about him on twitter. My mother told him that I don't live there anymore (20 years plus) and can she have his number so I can call him back. He refused to give his number to her and said to her not to worry, that he will find me."

I'm a big fan of sports journalism and talk-radio, and every once in a while a friend or family member will ask me why I listen to a bunch of childish goons shouting things at one another while calling it entertainment. I typically argue that that's not all sports journalism is. Al Trautwig just made things much harder for me by acting as childish as the troll and giving him roughly infinitely more attention than he deserves. In fact, all it did was cause the troll to begin tweeting at Trautwig nonstop, all while getting attention fed to him in response to the story of a sports journalist stooping down to the level of a jerk.

Mission accomplished? Hardly. I imagine that Trautwig has a great many more mothers to call now that this story is circulating.

Filed Under: al trautwig, parents, trolls, twitter

Lawyer Wants New Law To Hold Parents Criminally Liable For Their Kids' 'Cyberbullying'

from the another-tragedy-and-another-misguided-crusade dept

Lakeland, Florida has yet to erect any cyberbullying laws in the wake of a 12-years-old student's suicide, setting it apart from many other locales which have reacted badly to tragedies by rushing out overly broad and under-thought legislation. Of course, this plus is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has pretty much turned his office into a vigilante squad after declaring his "zero tolerance" (and made up just right now) policy against cyberbullying.

Judd arrested 14-year-old Guadalupe Shaw for a Facebook post in which she acknowledged bullying Rebecca Sedwick and noted she "didn't give a fuck" that the 12-year-old had killed herself. Judd charged Shaw with aggravated stalking. Not content with that, Judd tasked his investigators with finding something he could charge Shaw's parents with because he was unimpressed with Shaw's unrepentant attitude and her parents' failure to "smash" Shaw's computer into "thousands of pieces" after they found out about her activities.

Lucky for Judd, investigators found something, although that "something" isn't entirely related to Shaw's alleged bullying of Sedwick.

An outspoken Florida sheriff who arrested a 14-year-old girl for cyber-bullying after a younger schoolmate killed herself has filed child abuse charges against her mother, over an unrelated incident.

Polk County sheriff Grady Judd said Vivien Lee Vosburg, 30, punched and shouted obscenities at several children in her care in a violent incident in June that was captured on video [which can be viewed here] and later posted to Facebook by one of the children.

Judd has held Shaw's mother, Vivian Lee Vosburg, on child abuse charges. Meanwhile, Shaw has been released pending a court appearance. Not exactly what Judd was looking for when he first stated his desire to charge Shaw's parents for contributing (I guess) to the bullying of Rebecca Sedwick, but it seems to fit the narrative he's portraying.

"This clearly indicates to us that this appears to be a normal way of life," said Judd, who has declared a "zero tolerance" approach to cyber-bullying in his county. "They're laughing and cussing and throwing the F-bomb around, then they're posting that conduct for all to see. It is clear not only has Vosburg demonstrated she cannot control the behaviour of children she has access to without using violence, but she is obviously not monitoring the social media sites of children she has access to either.

"I'm astounded by this conduct, I'm astounded that it was posted and then I'm even more astounded that it stayed there."

Of Guadalupe Shaw, Judd said: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Judd's getting what he wants: a chance to prosecute parents for a child's behavior, all of which is punishment for another child's suicide. But so far, he and his "zero tolerance" have been limited to existing laws. Unfortunately, someone wants to change that, and that someone is none other than George Zimmerman's defense attorney, Mark O'Mara.

Florida attorney Mark O'Mara is stepping onto center stage in the debate over how much parents should be held responsible for children’s cyberbullying. He plans to draft legislation to impose criminal liability on parents who show "willful blindness or gross negligence" to the kind of online torment allegedly inflicted on Rebecca Sedwick, for which two girls were recently arrested.

"If a child kills someone while operating a parent’s car, the parents can be held responsible. If a child kills someone while using a parent's gun, the parent can be held responsible. If a child breaks the law using a computer or cellphone provided by the parent, how is that different?" wrote Mr. O'Mara, who served as defense attorney for George Zimmerman in this year's Trayvon Martin murder trial, in his "O'Mara Law Blog" on Thursday.

O'Mara's terrible idea looks to do more damage than Sheriff Judd's new found interest in zero tolerance policing of cyberbullies. O'Mara's proposal aims to do what Nova Scotia's atrociously bad cyberbullying law does: hold parents responsible for their children's actions. While O'Mara may have point about legal adults having been historically held responsible for certain illegal acts utilizing property owned by parents, this is breaking new ground.

For one thing, while Nova Scotia's law has the (to date untested) potential to hold parents civilly liable for their children's online bullying actions, O'Mara's draft legislation would hold parents criminally liable, a much more negative potential outcome. The attorney believes the law is needed because (in his opinion) parents have become too lax in monitoring and controlling their children's online activities.

O'Mara acknowledged in his blog that "there are substantial obstacles in the way of passing such legislation," but he said, "If parents won't adopt that responsibility, we need to hold their feet to the fire and insist they share liability, especially when their children's actions have life or death consequences."

If O'Mara's legislation is combined with the worst aspects of Nova Scotia's law (purely subjective "standard" for what can be termed "bullying," the entire process is ex parte -- no input from the accused during any step of the process), Floridians are going to have a new nightmare on their hands. Laws like this chill speech by holding normally protected expression to broadly restrictive standards. But all of this is what's come to be expected when people with the power to push legislation and deploy investigators decide to turn a tragedy into a crusade.

Filed Under: cyberbullying, grady judd, guadalupe shaw, liability, mark o'mara, parents, rebecca sedwick, vivan lee vosburg, zero tolerance

Proposed California Bill Would Require Sites To Hand Over Private Info On Kids To Their Parents

from the no,-that-won't-backfire-at-all... dept

It really is stunning how rarely it appears that politicians who introduce bills "for the children" think through the obvious consequences of those bills. For years, we've discussed how COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, has had massive unintended consequences, mainly cutting off lots of useful sites from any kids under the age of 13. It's also led to parents encouraging their kids to lie about their age, when they realize that all their friends are on sites like Facebook. Also, many people point out that COPPA is really an attack on kid's free speech rights. California has passed its own Online Privacy Protection Act that goes a bit further, but apparently, at least one California politician wants to take things even further, and is doing so with a plan that seems incredibly poorly thought out.

California Assemblywoman Nora Campos proposed a bill a few weeks ago, AB 319, that would expand things so much that any sites that collect any information about anyone under the age of 18 would be required under law to reveal that personal information to parents if requested.

Now, think about that for a second. Since this is for any kids up to 18, we're talking about most of the teenage years for most kids. These are the years in which many teens rebel against their parents, which is, in many ways, a natural part of growing up and becoming an independent adult. To think that parents should be able to find out information directly from various sites about their kids' use of those sites seems incredibly problematic. There may be sites where the teens have tried to keep information private from their parents. And maybe that's because, say, the parents are anti-gay, and the child is gay. Do we really want parents to have easy access to that material? Or... what if it's a site for abused kids, and they are signing up to get help and to report that abuse? Under this law, it would appear that parents can check up on their kids on those sites.

What this bill would mean is that, in California, minors can get an abortion without parental notification, but they can't use Facebook. Also, under California law, teenagers may be emancipated as of age 14. But their parents can still spy on their online activities?

Oh yeah, and the parents can order those sites to no longer allow their children to use the sites any more. For troubled kids, seeking to connect with others who can help them at the point when they're struggling the most with their parents, it would seem like a situation that could have disastrous consequences.

An operator shall provide to a parent whose minor dependent has provided personal information to an Internet Web site or online service, upon request of the parent and proper identification, a description of the specific types of personal information collected from the minor by the operator, the opportunity at any time to refuse to permit the operator’s further use or maintenance in retrievable form, or future online collection, of personal information from the minor, and a means that is reasonable under the circumstances for the parent to obtain personal information collected from the minor.

I'm sure Campos is thinking that this is one of those "protect the children" bills that makes for nice headlines. But shouldn't someone actually think about the actual impact of these bills before they get introduced?

Filed Under: california, children, parents, privacy, protect the children

Poll: US Adults Think Video Games Lead To Violence But Can't Be Bothered To Understand ESRB Ratings

from the wait,-what? dept

It just keeps coming. More and more news items are hitting my eyeballs and ears about violence and video games. We recently discussed the problem with polling adults over this issue, where a giant age-rift still exists amongst gaming habits and that rift appeared to be tossed out for the purposes of the poll in question. Polls like that might be laughable at first, but when you begin to see misplaced legislation introduced by politicians kowtowing to the results, we've got a problem. But let's take it one possibly controversial step further and ask an important question regarding these polls: do Americans generally have any credibility on the question at all?

Polls like this recent Harris poll, where over half of American adults link violence and video games, make me question whether that is the case. The problem I have isn't that specific result. If half of Americans think there's a link, that's their right. I can disagree with it, but I won't quibble with their right to believe. No, my problem is the results of the follow up questions regarding the ESRB rating system.

Two thirds of US adults said they used the ESRB system to help them decide which games were suitable for their children, although only 14 percent claimed to fully understand what the guidelines meant. 18 percent of adult said they mostly, but not completely understood the ESRB ratings system.

To highlight the absurdity of the respondents, one needs only place all this in a single sentence. Over half of adults believe violence and video games are linked, two thirds of them use an ESRB system, which less than 80% even claim to mostly understand, to decide which games to buy for their children. This isn't to say that the ESRB rating convention isn't without its problems, but come on. If half of adults think there's a link between children and violence, but can't be bothered to mostly understand the rating system (which isn't that complicated), then there's a disconnect somewhere. Either adults don't actually think the link exists, or else they don't really consider the link to be all that important.

Either way, it doesn't speak to the credibility of the American public on the issue, which is sad.

Filed Under: adults, esrb, esrb ratings, parents, ratings, video games, violence

Recording Industry Rep Suggests Parents Should Slap Their Children To Stop Piracy

from the mask-is-slipping dept

One of the many problems with the "guilty until proven innocent" approach to tackling unauthorized filesharing is that it's not clear exactly who should get the punishment. For example, in France, we saw someone convicted not for infringement that he had committed, but something his then-wife had done and even admitted. And it's not just spousal activity that is problematic, as TorrentFreak reports in this interesting case from Germany:

A ruling handed down yesterday by Germany's highest court represents a blow to rightsholders in their quest to clamp down on illicit file-sharing. The court ruled that the parents of a teenager who had made available more than 1,100 songs on file-sharing networks can not be held responsible for their son's infringements, nor be required to monitor or hinder his online activities.

What's particularly interesting here is that Germany's top court not only threw out the original fine, but did so without imposing any unreasonable conditions on the parents, for example by requiring them to spy on their child:

The Court ruled that the parents had met their parental obligations when they informed their child of "basic do's and don'ts" including that file-sharing copyrighted content online is illegal.

Furthermore, the Court ruled that the parents were not required to monitor their child's online activities nor install special software to restrict his online behavior. This would only be required should the parents have "reasonable grounds" to presume that their child would engage in infringing activities online.

Of course, not everyone was happy with this result, which could have major implications for imposing fines in Germany, since it seems likely that much unauthorized file sharing there as elsewhere is carried out by teenagers in their family homes. The Netzpolitik.org blog pointed us to an interesting comment made by a representative of the music industry (original in German):

The case shines "a harsh light" on the fact that, for many parents, the concept of upbringing has become a foreign word, the legal representative of the music industry complained, according to the AFP news agency at the hearing before the federal court in Karlsruhe. While before "an occasional slap didn't hurt", today children are kept on a loose leash.

This hankering after the good old days when parents could hit children to cow them into submission is hardly surprising: it's the physical equivalent of the disproportionate legal punishment the music industry would like to see meted out to all those caught doing naughty things online like sharing files without permission.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: children, germany, liability, parents

AMC Defies MPAA Bullies: Will Show Unrated Documentary To Kids With Permission Slips

from the they-only-have-as-much-power-as-we-give-them dept

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle in Hollywood lately surrounding the documentary Bully, which has drawn attention to the ridiculousness of the MPAA's movie ratings system—and may even indicate the first real erosion of the organization's power in that area. The documentary—which has been well-received as an accurate depiction of real problems, and a potentially important film for parents, teachers and kids to see—was rated R by the MPAA for harsh language, which would stop kids under 17 from seeing it in theatres alone. This sparked a massive push-back from the studio and the anti-bullying activist community, but the MPAA refused to budge, so the studio announced that it would release the film as unrated by the MPAA (though they do include the much more reasonable "Pause 13+" rating it received from Common Sense Media, a non-profit children's advocacy group).

This can confuse people, because it's a common assumption that movie ratings are required by the government. In fact, the MPAA's rating system is unregulated and entirely voluntary, and was created as a way to avoid government intervention. The rating from CSM carries no more or less legal weight than an MPAA rating—but participation by studios, cinemas and retailers in the MPAA system has been so widespread for so long that their ratings are the de facto standard, and essentially mandatory. Any film can be released without a rating, but traditionally that has been commercial suicide, since theatres would treat it as NC17, a rating under which success is nearly impossible since most theatres won't show such films at all. But that's where things with Bully get interesting: AMC has announced that its theatres will show the movie and make it easy for kids to see it. In a unique move, they are providing a parental permission slip on their website for kids to print, get signed, and bring to the theatre:

“AMC will be presenting Bully…as not rated,” said the theater-chain in a statement. “Guests younger than 17 can see the film if they are accompanied by a parent or adult guardian, or if they present a signed parental permission slip.”

That permission slip will be available on Wednesday at this link on AMC’s website. ... (A rep for the company declined to comment on the Parent’s Television Council’s statement that screening Bully at AMC’s theaters “threatens to derail the entire ratings system.”)

That last bit is interesting, because it shows that the Parents Television Council (notorious moralist meddlers in the free speech rights of others) knows exactly what's happening. The power of the MPAA and groups like PTC relies entirely on momentum and force of habit. Nobody is beholden to them, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that. That let the MPAA warp the rating system and use it for their own purposes such as playing politics, screwing over indie filmmakers, and even punishing a documentary that criticized the rating system itself. But now people are remembering that they don't have to play by the MPAA's self-serving rules. In their statement, PTC neatly predicts the future, though they rail against it:

"This move, regardless of intentions, sets a precedent that threatens to derail the entire ratings system," said PTC head Tim Winter in a statement."If a distribution company can simply decide to operate outside of the ratings system in a case like Bully, nothing would prevent future filmmakers from doing precisely the same thing, with potentially much more problematic material."

As with most of the disruption happening in the entertainment industry, this has a lot to do with the internet. In the past, if everyone played by the rules, there was basically no such thing as "unmet demand" for a film with a bad rating. Once the MPAA handed down its death sentence, nobody would touch the project, and it would receive no promotion or screen time, so nobody outside film circles even knew about it. Now lots of people are plugged into the festival circuit and the inside world of film, so a movie like Bully can generate plenty of buzz before it even hits Hollywood. The demand for the film was there, the studios were able to gamble on that demand, and AMC could see the advantage in breaking the rules to meet it. If the film is a success (which seems likely) it will deal a powerful and much-needed blow to the MPAA's ratings regime.

Filed Under: bully, bullying, parents, ratings
Companies: amc, mpaa, parents television council