Witness Testimony

I would like to express my opposition to any broad based governmental restriction of media and internet violence. I would like to do so for several reasons.

First, I will admit that depictions of violence on TV, the movies or on the internet, available to children, particularly repeated depictions, increases the likelihood of children engaging in acts of violence. But I am still opposed to any broad based censorship of the media and the internet to protect children.

One reason is that it gives the impression of government acting as Big Brother. It was Joseph Stalin who claimed to be the engineer of human souls. To a minor degree and in a seemingly benign way, broad based censorship of media and internet violence available to children lends itself to this approach. The assumption underlying this approach is that the government should mold what images children receive in order to create a more socially adjusted child. While having social well adjusted children is a laudable goal, any broad based censorship in one area has the potential for encouraging other restrictions (the slippery slope argument). Are depictions of violence that children can see any more justified than depictions of sex or hatred? Once government starts down this road in one area, any logical limit to governmental regulation in other areas is weakened. The sum of such regulations, though not each individual one taken separately, could move our citizenry, and not just the young, toward a substantially restricted ability to see images and express thoughts.

A second reason is that, over the long run, it may restrict our liberty without being effective. The underlying assumption is that it is only external stimulus that causes people, children and adults, to act in an anti-social way. If we could only eliminate the external stimulus, we would solve the problem of anti-social behavior. But this view seems simple minded. Ted Bundy said that his violent acts against women were triggered by looking at violent pornography. This cannot be the whole story. The vast majority of men could look at depictions of violent acts against women and would likely become disgusted or bored and stop looking. While the external stimulus might be the immediate cause in specific instances, something in the human brain of some people is also going on. Could anyone seriously argue, for example, that the neo-Nazi, Matthew Hale, developed his views because of some Nazi film that he saw? Under the view that I am espousing some people (mostly boys and men) have either been poorly raised by their parents or parent substitutes or else have some genetic flaw that makes them particularly violent. If this is so, then censoring the images that children (or adults) receive in the media or internet would have little or no long term effect on such people.

A third reason is that any broad based restriction is likely to be ineffective because it restricts what children and adults can see more completely than the public would tolerate. If children cannot see violent cartoons on TV, then they might gravitate to violent cartoon comics. If children and adults, cannot see or read violent material more generally, they will gravitate even more to violence in sports-boxing, wrestling, football, hockey even baseball and basketball. In order to protect children fully, the government would have to regulate what appears on news broadcasts. No images of people shooting people in Iraq would be allowed. Then too, the Bible and Koran contain depictions of violence. Should these be barred as well?

A fourth reason is that efforts to protect children through broad based restrictions of violence on TV or the internet are likely to run afoul of the Supreme Court's understanding of the First Amendment. While the Court has allowed government to restrict depictions of obscene material (pornography that appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value) and sexual depictions of children (whether obscene or not), it has so far not allowed for media restrictions of violence. The one case I am aware of in this area was a city's effort to prohibit degrading or violent depictions of women. Since the ordinance was not limited to the narrow obscenity exception to First Amendment protected speech, the federal courts struck it down. The Court has also struck down statutes that restrict what adults can see even though they have been enacted ostensibly to protect children. As the Court puts it, adults cannot be limited to what is fit for children. Thus, if the net result of a broad based restriction so as to limit what adults can see on TV or in the movies, I believe it would run afoul of similar Court pronouncements. As to the Internet, the Court has not yet determined whether it would accept a restriction on what children can access based on community standards when the result would enable the most restrictive community to determine what children could access in the most permissive communities.

What I would call a narrowly based statute, one that, for example, requires that salesmen selling TVs explain to buyers how to use the V-Chip (assuming the TV has one), a labeling statute as to what is unfit for children, or a statute that prohibits depictions of violence in cartoon shows in the morning hours, probably would be upheld by the Court and would not unduly restrict our First Amendment liberties.