4 Inches to the Left

The image to the left is from William Cullen Bryant's 1896 work, A Popular History of the United States. It depicts a forensic test known as "ducking". Ducking was practiced in witch trials dating back to the Inquisition. The DNA analysis of its time, the results of a ducking test were considered to be proof positive as to the guilt or innocence of a person suspected of witchcraft. The accused would be bound, hand and foot, and thrown into the nearest available body of water. If the suspect floated on top of the water, their transgressions were proven. If they sank to the bottom, they were allowed to go free (assuming, of course, that they could be retrieved before drowning).

It also happens to be a fairly accurate (if stylized) portrayal of Senate Bill 3935(PDF), the "Truth in Video Game Ratings Act". S3935 was authored and proposed by our second favorite senator from Kansas, Sam Brownback.

If passed, S3935 would make it unlawful for any organization, public or private, to 1) rate the content of a video game without playing the game in its entirety or 2) withhold content from a rating body. The bill would also force the Comptroller General's office to investigate the rating practices of the Entertainment Software Rating Board and make "recommendations regarding effective approaches to video and computer game content ratings". The ESRB is a private, non-profit organization that establishes guidlines and assigns content ratings for the video game industry, much like the MPAA does for the movie industry.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of video games should immediately understand the impossibility of this trial by ordeal. The ESRB rates over a thousand games every year, some of which require a minimum of one hundred hours to complete. Additionally, many modern games employ coding that allows the program to generate content as the game is being played, providing non-linear gameplay and infinite replayability. At first glance, one could assume that Brownback's impossible requirements are the result of simple ignorance. A closer look, however, reveals a troubling agenda.

Brownback is no newcomer to the politics of video games. He chaired Senate subcommitee meetings on the subject in 1999(PDF) and March of 2006. In the latter of these, he personally congratulated ESRB spokesman Pat Vance on "selling a lot of violent games in 2004". More recently, he jumped the bipartisan fence to work with such Democratic notables as Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton on the CAMRA act, which directs the Centers for Disease Control to research the psychological effects of electronic media. He has made several public statements decrying the ESRB and the content of modern video games. Simply put, ignorance is not the issue at hand. Considering Brownbacks contempt for the ESRB and the video game industry in general, it is not surprising to see that S3935 specifically targets the ESRB with G.A.O investigations. In context, the bill seems less like the fumbling of an out-of-touch politician and more like an intentional attempt to break the back of the game industry's self-regulating body.

More troubling is the fact that the bill directs the G.A.O report to "address the unique ratings challenges of online and Internet-based video games". As it stands, the vast majority of online games are non-commercial products created by individuals and small developers, very few of whom could afford the time or cost of an ESRB rating. Taken in conjunction with Section 3(4)'s directive to assess "the efficacy of a universal ratings system for visual content, including films, broadcast and cable television and video, and computer games", it seems as if Brownback is attempting to enforce across-the-board media content regulation from the Federal pulpit.

I am not ready to don my tin-foil hat just yet, but I do echo the sentiments of Prof. Dmitri Williams, (answering a question from Brownback at a subcomitee meeting this year) "the impulse to in some way restrict or measure something before its released to the general public falls way outside of my purview and as a citizen, honestly, creeps me out a little bit". Amen, professor. The concept that members of our government would even want to regulate protected speech gives me a case of Orwellian heebie-jeebies.

Of course, I understand that not everyone is as sensitive to the sanctity of our First Amendment freedoms:

"The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. What too many in the media industry fail to realize is that this right is not without limits..."
-Sam Brownback