Clinton promises vote against gamers

Hilary Clinton was the spearhead behind the ill-fated Family Entertainment Protection Act in 2005. In spite of the failure of that unnecessary and frivolous bill, Clinton is still staunchly in the corner of censorship, this time targeting gamers and fans of anime and other animation and cartoon formats.

In these troubled times, you would expect a politician running for the highest office in the land to concentrate on the big issues, like Iraq, global warming or the economy, for starters. Instead, Clinton, has chosen a softball non issue that would place undue censorship on the gaming industry and animation industry as a whole.

Clinton’s new approach vows to protect children from the gaming industry. She addressed this promise (or threat, depending on where you stand on the issue) to members of Common Sense Media, saying:

“I was motivated to take action when I found out that there was embedded illicit sexual content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board was unaware of the embedded content. I called on the FTC to investigate the source of the content and, as a result, the company issued a recall of the game. When I am president, I will work to protect children from inappropriate video game content.”

As someone in the technology sphere, I see this potentially having major repercussions in more than just the gaming and animation industries. It could effect the content of even the most innocent of children’s cartoon programs as legislators use it as a back door to promote full censorship. Can you imagine cartoons written without the adult subtext that makes them minutely tolerable to parents? What would Shrek have been, for example, without the Ugly Stepsister and other “risque” content?

I see the content of games and monitoring such as strictly the domain of the parent or guardian, not the government. It will be interesting to see how her stance on this affects her standing among the geek vote, which is much stronger than most people assume.

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