The " V" Buckaroo Frenesi

[Hershom K. Bazerman]

The V chip has more ability to censor than you may think. The simple fact 
of the matter is that for a V chip to work, you need a unified rating 
system. This means that there will only be very rough criteria for 
defining what falls into each category. How much violence is "too much" 
for a 10 year old child? An 8 year old child? The other problem is that 
the criteria will be centrally defined. If parents can't control exactly 
what shows are blocked, they once again give up some of their freedom in 
parenting choices. It's also just another example of the government 
interfering with the market. If people wanted V chips, they'd buy TVs 
that already had them. If they don't want TVs with built in thought 
control, they shouldn't be forced to buy them. They're just another route 
for the government and multinats to be sticking their noses and stubby 
little fingers where they don't belong.

--bazerman at cs.ucsb.edu
On Tue, 13 Feb 1996 ethan at magicnet.net wrote:

> As I understand it, what the V chip blocks out is up to the consumer,
> presumable parents.  I don't think this has any implication in relation to
> future regulation of TV by the government.  If they wanted to censor TV,
> they would just outlaw certain types of programming, or but the TV stations
> and create their own broadcasts.  If this were to happen, everyone would
> just have to do what they should be doing right now anyway...and that's
> hurling their TV's out the windows of upper floor rooms.
>                                                 Ethan