And that's only part of the issue. If the government is going to censor movies, why should it empower an industry organization that's not acting in the public interest to do that?m0002a wrote:Most Americans don’t think this is the function of the government, and that it should be left to parents and/or private institutions (theaters, retailers, etc who voluntarily want to enforce the ratings).
Organizations like the MPAA go after unaffiliated productions and the cultural expression of minorities the world over. If you care about free speech, art or diversity, you don't want to make the distribution of unrated content illegal in any way! The tech to make movies is getting cheaper and cheaper and compulsory ratings are therefore becoming more and more of an hindrance. Should the stuff that hasn't got a big budget or insider backing be shown only on computer displays? This goes way beyond what's appropriate for children.
It's very easy with default-deny and lots of people are working on default-allow products (which are much harder to get right and never perfect), including governments. Obviously the same tech can be used for censorship so there's lots of money to be made in that area. People tend to balk at default-deny (laziness?) but the Internet as a whole isn't appropriate for young children. It ain't just the porn.m0002a wrote:is not easy to reliably prevent minors from viewing inappropriate sites