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?

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.

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.

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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.

An anti-violence video game group has pulled the easiest trick in the book, hiring a polling firm to do a poll that claims that 72% of parents want an anti-violent video game law. Of course, with something like this, how you ask such questions is very, very important. And, of course, it's not hard to word questions about violent video games in a way that would easily make them say they supported a law. Of course, you could just as easily twist things around. I would imagine that if the questions were worded along the lines of:

Do you support a law that takes your freedom of choice as a parent over what sorts of media your child might consume?

the results might be quite different. Or, how about if it asked:

Despite no evidence of harm down by certain media products, the government is looking to set up barriers to having your children take part in certain cultural events. Do you support such a law?

Obviously, both questions are highly biased, but it shows what a waste this kind of survey is, when it's designed to elicit a particular response, and almost certainly does not put the issues into context for people.

There's been some talk lately about how come not as many students are taking computer science in school, and someone over at Information Management online is suggesting that it's all your parents fault for encouraging you to be a baseball star or a CEO or the next American Idol. This seems to be based on nothing more than a hunch, and the whole thing makes no sense to me. My guess is that most people who don't go into computer science don't do it because they're not interested in it. I don't think the answer is to tell your little slugger to put down the baseball bat and spend more time learning BASIC.

My parents recently joined Facebook (a few months after joining Twitter), and I actually thought that was pretty cool -- but I'm no longer at the age where everything my parents do embarrasses me. For kids who are at that point in their lives, having parents join Facebook is quite a conundrum. The latest study out of the UK is suggesting that, with parents suddenly joining Facebook en masse, it's becoming uncool for kids to be there. I have no idea how accurate the study is, but if it's true, it raises an interesting question: is there a way to avoid such an "uncoolness" factor as a site like Facebook expands? I would think that you'd need to build in certain features to separate out groups easily, so that you could quickly dunk parents into a certain bucket, and friends into a different one, to make sure that lives are "kept separate."

For years, video games have been a convenient bogeyman/scapegoat for politicians to use in complaining about the sort of thing "kids these days" do on a daily basis. In the past, it's been other things -- from TV to music to comic books. But, these days, video games pop up an awful lot. So I guess it should come as no surprise at all that a recent study in Canada found that parents put much greater limits on how much time kids can spend playing video games than they do on TV or movies. Of course, this seems entirely backwards. Not that parents should let young kids just randomly play any video game, but if they're playing age-appropriate video games, you would think that would be a lot better than just sitting there watching TV with no interactivity whatsoever. Plenty of studies have shown that the interactivity of video games helps kids have better hand-eye coordination and (in some studies) problem solving skills. So why not encourage that? It's not examined in the study, but I'd guess that the constant complaining about these "awful video games" has an impact on a busy parent.

A new study from the UK says that parents underestimate by half the amount of time their kids spend online, while 81% of those parents surveyed said they had a good idea of what their kids look at online, but just 31% of kids agreed. All this happens in spite of more than half of British parents saying they put filters or other sorts of controls on the PCs their kids use, suggesting that -- surprise, surprise -- those controls aren't particularly effective. Furthermore, the survey would seem to indicate that what's lacking here aren't technological controls on kids' online behavior, but rather a lot of parental attention. Trying to outsource parental responsibility to some technological solution isn't going to work -- but the responsibility shouldn't be to fully or accurately monitor kids' online behavior (which is largely impossible anyway), it should be to educate kids to protect themselves and behave responsibly on the internet.

Tony Eaton points us to the rather disturbing news that New Zealand's "chief censor" (quite a title, there...), Bill Hastings, is interested in prosecuting parents who have bought their kids violent video games. Apparently parenting is no longer for parents, but for Bill Hastings to determine what is, and what is not appropriate:

"There would certainly be some shock value to prosecuting a parent who gives their under-18 child access to a restricted game. It would send out a message that the enforcement agency means business."

Based on the law, parents prosecuted could face $10,000 fines or be put in jail for three months. Which do you think would do more harm to a child? Playing GTA or having their parent dragged through a show trial, for "shock value," and dumped in jail for three months?