Enough Is Enough: The Senate Should Stop Playing Games And Confirm Gigi Sohn

from the the-fcc-has-work-to-do dept

Joe Biden entered office a year ago with a mandate to end corporate control of our government by establishing programs to benefit working families and by appointing qualified public servants to execute and oversee those programs.

We anticipated all along that Mitch McConnell would resort to his usual tactics and use the Senate filibuster rules to undermine President Biden's legislative agenda. Appointments should have been a different story. Nearly a decade has passed since Senate Democrats put an end to the filibuster for executive nominations, yet Republicans, on behalf of their corporate sponsors, continue to abuse the confirmation process, preventing President Biden from fulfilling his promises to the American people. Senate Democrats should recognize these games for what they are, stop enabling the obstruction, and move forward on approving President Biden's highly qualified nominees.

Take, for example, the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission. Sohn's strong credentials include co-founding the communications policy advocacy organization Public Knowledge and serving as counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. She is known as a long-time, tireless advocate for the expansion of affordable internet access - one of the key issues on the Democrats' agenda. There is currently a vacant seat on the FCC, and without a full commission it will be difficult to advance the policies necessary to expand affordable broadband service to the millions of American families left on the wrong side of the digital divide.

One person - Sen. Roger Wicker, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation - is standing in the way.

Sen. Wicker is promoting the interests of his big corporate campaign donors by preventing a pro-consumer, pro-worker majority at the Federal Communications Commission. Ever since Gigi Sohn was nominated, he has come up with bogus reasons to delay her confirmation vote. During her confirmation hearing she answered questions for hours. She provided reams of written materials and followed up with answers to additional questions. Six weeks later, Wicker asked for yet more documents and suddenly announced that the committee needed to hold yet another confirmation hearing.

Why did he not request such documents in a timely manner? Why did he not submit written questions for the record, standard practice for the committee? Why did he not accept the conclusions of government lawyers who carefully reviewed the very documents he claims to now seek? Because it's not about getting answers. It's about standing in the way of a highly qualified nominee simply because he doesn't like the outcome of the last Presidential election. Sen. Wicker wants an FCC majority that puts corporate profits first, not one that considers what is best for consumers and workers in the industry and that listens to the majority of Americans - Republican and Democrat - who support net neutrality and universal broadband access.

Make no mistake. This is yet another Republican attempt to undermine our democratic system and the functioning of the federal government. They might not be scaling the Capitol walls, wearing face paint, threatening to hang elected officials who don't kowtow to their demands, and publicly parading confederate flags in the halls of the Capitol, but Senate Republicans are trying to undermine the 2020 election results by playing every game possible to prevent a duly elected Administration from having qualified nominees serving on federal agencies. We have seen time and time again that Republicans will use every trick in the book to prevent oversight of their powerful corporate benefactors.

Unfortunately, after the vote last week by the U.S. Senate, Republican obstructionists will continue to be able to use the legislative filibuster to block critical legislation that will improve the lives of millions of working Americans. But my union helped lead the successful effort during the Obama Administration to eliminate their ability to filibuster qualified and critical nominees so that the federal government can function on behalf of the American people.

That is why Senate Democrats must not give in to these outrageous and egregious efforts to draw out the already long confirmation process for qualified nominees like Gigi Sohn. They must recognize these games for what they are and reject the never ending requests for even more hearings when they have had ample time to ask their questions. Senate Democrats must move forward expeditiously to approve Gigi Sohn and President Biden's other highly qualified nominees.

Christopher M. Shelton is President of the Communications Workers of America (CWA)

Filed Under: congress, delay, fcc, gigi sohn, mitch mcconnell, roger wicker

Senator Wicker Introduces Bill To Guarantee The Internet Sucks

from the you-did-what-now? dept

Why does Senator Roger Wicker from Mississippi hate the internet? Wicker, who has a close relationship with big telcos, who have long made it their mission to destroy the open internet, was already a co-sponsor of an awful "Section 230 reform" bill last session, and is back now with what he's ridiculously calling the "PRO-SPEECH" Act. It stands for "Promoting Rights and Online Speech Protections to Ensure Every Consumer is Heard Act." But, in reality, it is a blatant (and unconstitutional) attack on free speech.

The bill more or less bans any website from doing any moderation. The key part:

An internet platform may not engage in a practice that does any of the following:

(1) Blocks or otherwise prevents a user or entity from accessing any lawful content, application, service, or device that does not interfere with the internet platform's functionality or pose a data privacy or data security risk to a user.

(2) Degrades or impairs the access of a user or entity to lawful internet traffic on the basis of content, application, service, or use of a device that does not interfere with the internet platform's functionality or pose a data privacy or data security risk to a user.

Consider it the all porn and all spam allowed act! Kind of ironic for a Senator who once pushed an unconstitutional ban on selling video games to children. Under this bill, sites couldn't even stop kids from accessing or playing violent or pornographic video games.

There are two exceptions, both of which are silly. One is for "small internet platforms." And the other is... wait for it... if you declare yourself a "publisher" then it no longer applies. Yes, that's right. Senator Wicker is trying to make the ridiculous and nonsensical "publisher/platform" distinction an actual thing, despite the fact that this is blatantly unconstitutional.

Let's just remind everyone how this works: the 1st Amendment includes both the right for any website hosting content to make editorial decisions about what it will and won't include, as well as a right of association to say "I don't want to be associated with that stuff." In this setup, where a site has to declare itself a platform or a publisher, that effectively means taking away the 1st Amendment rights of a platform and turning into a garbage dump of spam and porn. Or... it has to declare itself a "publisher" at which point it faces liability for everything that shows up.

The end result is that this bill leans into the moderator's dilemma and creates two types of internet sites: complete garbage dumps of spam/abuse/porn/harassment where no moderation can take place, and Hollywood-backed squeaky clean productions. It wipes out the parts of the internet that most people actually like: the lightly moderated/curated user-generated aspects of social media that enable lots of people to have a voice and to connect with others, without being driven away by spammers, assholes, and abusers.

It also throws in this tidbit to make it clear Wicker doesn't want social media sites to kick Nazis off their platforms any more:

An internet platform may not take any action against a user or entity based on racial, sexual, religious, political affiliation, or ethnic grounds.

Thing is, discrimination on racial, sexual, religious, and ethnic grounds is already covered under civil rights laws -- and they're protected classes because they're mostly things inherent to someone, and not choices they make. Your political views and affiliation are different. And, the fact is, there are almost no sites out there (despite what ignorant people are screaming) that do any moderation based on political affiliation. Or, if they do, it's to literally ban the American Nazi Party. But under Wicker's bill, you couldn't ban the American Nazi Party or its members any more.

I wonder why he wants that?

Then there's the "I'm protecting Parler" part of the bill. It says this would be a presumed method of "unfair competition."

Any action taken by a larger internet platform that wholly blocks or prohibits an internet platform that competes with the large internet platform (or any affiliate of the large internet platform) from making use of the large internet platform.

So, this would mean that a platform like Parler could violate every policy it wants of companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple, and they would not be allowed to kick it off for any of those policy violations.

There are also onerous transparency requirements based on the false idea that there is a clear set of rules that every platform uses, rather than an ever-changing and evolving set of policies that is constantly dealing with edge cases.

The whole thing is a stupid wishlist of whiny fake conservatives who want to play the victim and claim they're oppressed for the culture war they're waging. But the end result would be wiping out all the important and useful parts of the internet, and dividing into two piles: all garbage all the time, or the Disney-fied, locked down part. No one should want that.

Which makes you wonder why Wicker does.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, moderator's dilemma, platform, pro-speech act, publisher, roger wicker, section 230

GOP Senators Release Latest Truly Stupid Section 230 Reform Bill; Would Remove 'Otherwise Objectionable'; Enable Spamming

from the this-is-not-the-reform-you're-looking-for dept

Honestly, you'd think that the Senate might have a few more important things to be working on right now than introducing what has to be the... what... 8th bill to try to rewrite Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act this year? Either way, three Senators on the Commerce Committee have released yet another truly ridiculous attempt at reforming Section 230. Senators Roger Wicker, Lindsey Graham, and Marsha Blackburn are the three clueless Senators behind the ridiculously named "Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act."

Before we dig deeper, I should remind you that Marsha Blackburn hates net neutrality with the passion of a thousand suns. Hell, she even put together this lovely video nearly a decade ago where she sings the praises of the open internet, and companies like "Facebook, YouTube, Twitter." And then she says: "There has never been a time that a consumer needed a federal bureaucrat to step in to intervene."

So, anyway, federal legislator Marsha Blackburn, along with Senators Wicker and Graham have decided to "intervene" in order to attack Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, because those companies are moderating their private property in a way that these Senators don't like. It seems that they want... a bit more... what's the word I'm thinking of? Oh, right, "neutrality" in how content moderation works.

Blackburn's press release quote is particularly hilarious after what she said about net neutrality:

...the contentious nature of current conversations provides perverse incentive for these companies to manipulate the online experience in favor of the loudest voices in the room. There exists no meaningful alternative to these powerful platforms, which means there will be no accountability for the devastating effects of this ingrained ideological bias until Congress steps in and brings liability protections into the modern era.

Oh really? Wicker's quote is just as dumb:

“For too long, social media platforms have hidden behind Section 230 protections to censor content that deviates from their beliefs,” said Wicker. “These practices should not receive special protections in our society where freedom of speech is at the core of our nation’s values. Our legislation would restore power to consumers by promoting full and fair discourse online.”

No, Senator, they've relied on the 1st Amendment to do that. You know, the thing you swore an oath to protect and defend? Even without Section 230, internet platforms would have every right to take down content. Indeed, they'd likely do so more often to avoid having to fight over it in court.

Meanwhile, Senator Graham's quote just emphasizes that this legislation is designed to violate the 1st Amendment:

“Social media companies are routinely censoring content that to many, should be considered valid political speech. This reform proposal addresses the concerns of those who feel like their political views are being unfairly suppressed.”

See, here's the thing about the 1st Amendment, Senator, it means that you don't get to decide what is and what is not "valid political speech." It also means you can't compel speech, meaning you cannot compel private companies to host speech they don't want.

So what does this silly and unconstitutional bill do? Not what it's backers think. The key part is that they want to limit the liability protections for moderation to a very specific list of things that the government deems okay to moderate. We'll get into why that's unconstitutional shortly, but it is. The first part is that it tries to reinvigorate Section (c)(2) (and then cut it down). If you don't recall, (c)(1) is the part that says a website can't be held liable for third party content. (c)(2) then says that a website can't be held liable for moderation choices. In practice (c)(2) is never used, because courts have determined that holding a website liable for moderation practices would also be making them liable for third party content. So (c)(2) rarely even gets brought up in court.

So this bill first rewrites (c)(1) to say that it "shall not apply to any decision or agreement made or action taken by a provider or user of an interactive computer service to restrict access to or availability of material by another information content provider." And then further says that any immunity for moderation can only be protected under (c)(2). Then, it totally neuters (c)(2). First, it changes the part that says a website or user can moderate if it "considers" the content "to be" a long list of things "or otherwise objectionable" and now says it has to have the "objectively reasonable belief" of those things -- but without the otherwise objectionable part. It would strike the term "otherwise objectionable" from (c)(2)(A) and replace it with: "promoting self-harm, promoting terrorism, or unlawful." That would then make it say that (new parts in bold):

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user has an objectively reasonable belief is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, promoting self-harm, promoting terrorism, or unlawful."

So... the end result is that moderation decisions would no longer be protected under (c)(1), and without the "otherwise objectionable" only a limited number of categories of content would get this protection under (c)(2). Note that "posting disinformation," for example, would no longer be covered. So, under this, Section 230 would no longer protect a website if it pulled down disinformation about, say, an election. Or COVID safety. Also it would seem to remove spam from 230 protections.

Of course, sites would almost certainly still be protected under the 1st Amendment, but it would be a hell of a lot more expensive for companies to defend against a slew of vexatious lawsuits regarding their moderation practices. This would be a full employment bill for tort lawyers (remember when Republicans used to whine about tort lawyers and their vexatious lawsuits?).

Finally, the bill would also change the definition regarding what constitutes an "information content provider." The law has always said that an ICP is anyone "that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development" of the content in question. Thus, in the Roommates.com case, Roommates was found to be the ICP for the content that potentially violated the Fair Housing Act, and therefore did not get 230 protections over that content (but did get 230 protections over actual 3rd party content).

In the new bill, it tries to redefine the "being responsible" bit to say that it "includes any instance in which a person or entity editorializes or substantively modifies the content of another person or entity."

You can think of this is the "make Twitter liable for fact checking Trump" clause. Of course, as I've argued in the past, the content of Twitter's fact check was never protected by 230 in the first place. Because it created that content. However, that content is 100% protected by the 1st Amendment. As would almost all content moderation decisions even under this bill.

So this bill would create a bunch of wasteful litigation and probably end up in the same basic place: platforms still able to moderate content, though they could face more expensive lawsuits about it all.

But it's also worth highlighting that the bill itself is obviously unconstitutional. By limiting the types of content that gets immunity protections, these three Senators have created a bill that is literally the opposite of content neutral. The Supreme Court has made it clear that you can't pass laws that are not content neutral. And this bill explicitly is not -- saying that only certain types of pre-approved content get legal protections (even if the content itself is legal), and others don't. That's a huge 1st Amendment no-no. In Ward v. Rock Against Racism, the Supreme Court said it pretty clearly:

Government regulation of expressive activity is content neutral so long as it is "justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech."

Yet here, the content is directly referenced, with a list of acceptable moderation reasons.

Either way the end result here is that (1) the bill is obviously unconstitutional, (2) it won't create more speech online, (3) won't stop Trump and his fans from getting fact checked, but (4) might lead to a bunch of wasteful litigation that will lose in the end, and (5) might destroy niche communities, and (6) encourage spam.

Those last two are kind of important. Because it would mean that niche communities might face vexatious lawsuits for moderating merely off-topic content. And it would mean that nearly all spam filtering is no longer protected by 230. Again, in the long run, they'd likely be protected under the 1st Amendment, but boy would there be wasteful litigation in the middle.

Anyway, I'm only moderately amused that this ridiculously unconstitutional piece of garbage, which focuses on the removal of the phrase "otherwise objectionable" happens to be released the day after we released "otherwise objectionable" merchandise. I guess get it while it still matters?

Filed Under: cda 230, content moderation, intermediary liability, lindsey graham, marsha blackburn, moderation, otherwise objectionable, roger wicker, section 230

FTC Commissioners Are Upset About Section 230; Though It's Not At All Clear Why

from the guys,-really? dept

Another day, another bunch of nonsense about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The Senate Commerce Committee held an FTC oversight hearing yesterday, with all five commissioners attending via video conference (kudos to Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter who attended with her baby strapped to her -- setting a great example for so many working parents who are struggling with working from home while also having to manage childcare duties!). Section 230 came up a few times, though I'm perplexed as to why.

Senator Thune, who sponsored the problematic PACT Act that would remove Section 230 immunity for civil actions brought by the federal government, asked a leading question to FTC Chair, Joe Simons, that was basically "wouldn't the PACT Act be great?" and Simons responded oddly about how 230 was somehow blocking their enforcement actions (which is just not true).

Senator Thune: Chairman Simons, as you know, reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been hotly debated here in Congress. Section 230 is the law that prevents social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, from being sued for content that users post on their platforms. I've introduced a bi-partisan bill with Senator Schatz on this issue, known as the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (the PACT Act), which among other things would stipulate that the immunity provided by Section 230 does not apply to civil enforcement actions brought by the federal government. The DOJ recommended this particular provision in its recently published list of recommendations for reforming Section 230. My question is how would consumer benefit from reforming Section 230 to ensure that the immunity provided by Section 230 does not apply to civil enforcement actions brought by the federal government, such as the FTC.

Simons: Thank you Senator. So we have a number of instances... it's actually fairly common for us to go into court and have a defense put on us relating to Section 230. So, it would be very helpful for us to avoid having to deal with that and allow us the ability to go not only after the platform participants, but, in the right circumstances, the platform itself.

There are so many issues with this. First, he doesn't actually answer the question. Thune asked him how it would benefit consumers, but Simons answered how it would benefit the FTC. While the FTC might like to argue otherwise, those two things are not the same. Second, what a nonsense question and answer. The point of Section 230 is to protect platforms from being held liable for actions of their users -- so why would it make sense for the FTC to ever go after the platform in those cases? Third, it's difficult to think of any case where (contrary to what Simons claims...) Section 230 ever got in the way of an FTC enforcement action. Indeed, back in 2016 we had a story showing the exact opposite. The 2nd Circuit appeals court more or less said that the FTC gets to ignore Section 230. We found that problematic at the time, but Simons (and Thune) seem to think they just need more of that.

Meanwhile, it's not clear there's a real split among Commissioners. Simons, the chair, is a Republican. Commissioner Rohit Chopra was also asked about Section 230 and also gave a bizarre answer. This was in response to some questions asked by Senator Wicker (who went on a bizarrely uninformed anti-Section 230 floor rant earlier this week). He first asked Simons about whether or not the FTC had a role in enforcing Section 230, and also about doing anything in regards to the President's executive order on 230. Unlike FCC chair Ajit Pai, who caved in to the President's unconstitutional order and started an inquiry, Simons at least pointed out that (despite what the executive order says about the FTC) he sees no role for it:

Wicker: Let's talk about the FTC's role in overseeing the enforcement of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and in particular, President Trump's Executive Order in May, on preventing online censorship. Specifically, section four of this order calls on the FTC to take action against online platforms that restrict speech in a manner inconsistent with their terms of service. What is your view, Mr. Chairman, on the FTC's responsibilities under the executive order? And have you seen any examples of the behavior described in the order and taken any action under your authority so far?

Simons: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We haven't taken any action according to the executive order. We get complaints from a wide variety of sources. From the public, from Congress, from competitors, from people in industry, from consumer watchdogs. And it's very important that we get those complaints and we pay attention to them. Lots of complaints have come from members of this Committee, and we're very thankful to them that you provide us with such thoughtful complaints.

We're an independent agency so we review all of them independently. We have jurisdiction over commercial speech -- particularly on deceptive and unfair and then some other statutes. So we look to see whether the complaints are subject to unfairness... or whether they're within our authority as I described. Our authority focuses on commercial speech, not political content curation.

If we see complaints that are not within our jurisdiction, then we don’t do anything. If we see complaints that are, we take a closer look, and figure out whether there's a violation. And then we determine whether it's appropriate for us to act.

Wicker: So you don't view political speech as within your jurisdiction?

Simons: Correct.

Wicker: So if the public and members of the Senate are concerned about online platforms like Twitter and Facebook being inconsistent in the way they restrict political speech, you do not view that as within the purview of your statutory responsibilities. And therefore, the executive order does not instruct you in that specific area? Is that correct?

Simons: Yes. For political content curation. Yes.

This line of questioning was already silly enough, but at least, unlike Pai, Simons was willing to say "hey, that's outside of our jurisdiction." But Wicker's line of question is silly in its own way. There's no legal requirement that platforms treat different political speech equally. And it would violate the 1st Amendment if the law did.

From there, though Wicker goes on to one of the Democratic Commissioners, Chopra, who also doesn't seem to like 230 either.

Chopra: Putting aside the executive order, the issue of Section 230 is one where... of great concern, and I think there's growing bipartisan consensus that it has been abused. We see, whether it comes to counterfeit and defective goods, and the unlevel playing field between online platforms and brick and mortar stores. And in general, I think the scrutiny is warranted when it comes to technology platforms abusing any liabilities and public privileges, and using that as regulatory arbitrage.

I think many of these platforms do have too much power to dictate certain policies and regulations, and I don't want to see them continue, in my view, to overuse and abuse the legal immunities that Congress has provided, and I think we need to take a hard look at that. Particularly when it comes to the use of surveillance-based behavioral advertising. I think that business model is inconsistent with the origins of Section 230. Section 230 is supposed to safeguard and promote speech. It's not supposed to prioritize certain types of things over others based on what makes those companies more money.

This is also wrong and misguided on many points. First of all, you don't "abuse" an immunity granted by Congress when you use it as intended -- which is to avoid liability for 3rd party content and to make content moderation decisions. Second: regarding counterfeit or defective goods, counterfeit goods are generally a trademark issue which is entirely exempt from Section 230. You'd think that Chopra would know this? Indeed, there was a huge lawsuit regarding eBay and counterfeit goods that I'm sure he does know about -- which shows that the issue is not a Section 230 one.

Also, every major platform already has a massive operation trying to fight counterfeit and defective goods -- totally unrelated to Section 230. They do so because they want their consumers to be happy.

Second, there is no "unlevel playing field." Section 230 protects all websites -- including those of "brick and mortar stores." So it's a weird comparison to make.

Finally, as we were just discussing, it's unclear what behavioral advertising has to do with 230. Section 230 is unrelated to business models -- and having an advertising based business model has not "inconsistent with the origins of Section 230." Section 230 has allowed a wide variety of platforms to exist, many of which is because they have relied on Section 230 protections to enable much broader consumer speech.

Once again, it would be nice if someone in our government actually understood the law before commenting on it. Unfortunately, it appears we're not getting that from the FTC.

Filed Under: civil enforcement, counterfeits, ftc, intermediary liability, joe simons, john thune, oversight, pact act, roger wicker, rohit chopra, section 230

AT&T Throwing FundRaiser For Senate Chair Ahead Of Privacy Hearings

from the nothing-to-see-here dept

Scandal after scandal after scandal has resulted in many finally realizing that the United States is likely going to have to craft at least some basic privacy guidelines moving forward. The problem: with so many justly wary of Congressional Luddites screwing it up, and so many wealthy industries lobbying jointly to try and weaken the potential guidelines, this isn't going to be a pretty process. If we come out of it with anything even closely resembling a decent privacy law for the digital age (one that doesn't make things worse) we'll be very fortunate.

But it's hard to craft much of any meaningful privacy rules when Congress is so grotesquely beholden to the industries they're supposed to be holding accountable. That was made pretty obvious when the telecom sector lobbied to kill some basic FCC privacy guidelines the FCC had approved before they could even take effect back in 2017. Those rules simply required that ISPs be transparent about what data is being collected and who it would be sold to, something that could have proven extremely useful in the wake of these revelations of carriers selling your location data to any and every nitwit in America.

And as Congress begins holding public hearings to contemplate what privacy rules should look like, telecom giants like AT&T are again likely to have an outsized influence on what those laws will likely look like. For example, AT&T and other telecom giants will be holding a fundraiser for Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, the night before a major hearing on privacy regulations:

"According to the invitation for Tuesday’s fundraiser, which will be supporting a group backing Wicker’s reelection called RFW PAC, it costs $1,500 to attend the event as a guest, $2,500 to attend as a sponsor and $5,000 to co-host. The next day Wicker’s committee will hold its first hearing of the new Congress on crafting comprehensive data privacy legislation — a key issue for the telecom industry."

The fact that a huge swath of folks don't see a problem here speaks to how Sisyphean the effort for meaningful privacy rules is going to be. Like so many problems (like health care or broadband availability), you can't actually fix the problem until you address government corruption. And you can't fix government corruption until you address lobbying reform. And you can't fix lobbying reform thanks to... lobbying. It would be funny in a Keystone-cops-esque way if the end result wasn't so repeatedly and painfully tragic.

AT&T is, you'll recall, a company busted charging broadband users $500 more per year just to opt-out of snoopvertising, effectively making privacy a luxury option available only to those who can afford it. It's the same company busted selling user location data to shady middlemen, covertly modifying user packets to track users around the internet, and with a long, deep history of not only sucking up to the NSA and spying on Americans, but also advising the government on how best to tap dance around existing wiretap and privacy laws.

Again, AT&T is the very last company you want having any additional leverage when it comes to crafting meaningful privacy law. Especially given that this Wednesday's hearing is already missing any objective experts or consumer groups in the testimony lineup. And yet they're likely to have more of an impact on what our looming new privacy law looks like than probably any other companies short of Apple, Facebook, and Google.

Filed Under: fundraiser, lobbying, privacy, roger wicker, soft corruption
Companies: at&t

Senator Introduces Unconstitutional Bill To Ban Sale Of Certain Video Games To Minors

from the apparently-wants-to-challenge-the-constitution dept

We were just talking about how New York State was about to become the latest in a long line of states to waste taxpayer money fighting for an unconstitutional law requiring video games to be labeled and also banning the sale of certain video games to children. Nearly a dozen states have tried to introduce similar legislation, and every time they've been rejected by courts as unconstitutional. Every time. There is simply no excuse for politicians to introduce another one of these laws. The courts have been clear that those laws aren't just unconstitutional, but can even be harmful to children.

Now we've got the federal government getting in on the game as well. I was just looking over some of the latest bills introduced in Congress via the always excellent Washington Watch and what do I see, but a newly introduced bill in the Senate that would require "age-based content rating labels" and ban the sale or rental of games with adult content to minors. Of course, video games are already rated via a voluntary rating system (same as movies), and most video game stores already ban the sale of such games to kids. Plus, oh yeah, there's that whole First Amendment issue.

So, what, exactly does Sen. Roger Wicker hope to accomplish in introducing such a bill, other than to potentially waste taxpayer money in a lawsuit that will clearly be lost?

Filed Under: bans, first amendment, roger wicker, senate, video games