Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Right Way to Regulate Violent TV

My former colleague Adam Thierer, a Senior Fellow with the Progress and Freedom Foundation, has just issued a marvelous paper, The Right Way to Regulate Violent TV. Adam's paper contains a wealth of information concerning the availability of technical controls such as the V-Chip and set-top box blocking features that can be used to filter television content. The paper contains a very useful discussion as well of non-technical controls such as informal household media rules.

Anyone interested in the debate concerning whether we need new laws or regulations dealing with TV violence should read Adam's paper. As importantly, parents concerned with understanding the tools available to "regulate" their children's TV viewing should read the paper. If they do--and if they take seriously their parental responsibilities--there would be far fewer calls for the government to do for them what they can and ought to do for themselves.