
If You Build a Censorship Machine, They Will Come - dwaxe
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/if-you-build-censorship-machine-they-will-come
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mweilgart
The happy part of this story (not mentioned in the text) is that the
"remarkable power" wielded by the MPAA, having no legal enforcement, would _go
away_ if used for arbitrary censorship.

In other words, if the MPAA found itself firmly in agreement with the goals of
arbitrary censorship, the result would be a gradual dying away of its power
and a gradual rise of theater chains, television stations, etc., which would
happily play movies having no MPAA rating or movies with an arbitrarily
restrictive rating.

The ratings must remain useful to be used.

(On the other hand, the same meddlers who want to force the MPAA to rate
movies restrictively for tobacco content, would undoubtedly lobby for MPAA
ratings to be legally binding on movie theaters, and for unrated movies to be
illegal to play publicly. And thus are First Amendment rights gradually eroded
by "well meaning" idiots....)

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forgottenpass
Your point only holds as long as "arbitrary censorship" is tautologically
defined as the types of censorship that would cause people to stop trusting
the MPAA. And not only stop trusting them, but actively distrust them so much
that retailers and theaters were economically incentived to not even humor the
uptight busybodies that demand a censorship system.

Given that the MPAA already bumps a movie up to at least PG-13 for drug use, I
wouldn't find it incongruous for them to treat cigarettes in a similar
fashion.

If someone considers the Orgasmo/South Park case study, or many of the others
in _This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)_ , I don't know how they would come away
with an assessment that the MPAA doesn't already engage in arbitrary
censorship (unless they were to agree with Matt Stone's more serious
accusation that the MPAA is an economic cartel).

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microDude
Here is a interesting Pod-Cast about the MPAA:
[http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-mpaa-
work...](http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-mpaa-works.htm)

I always thought it was more useful, as a parent, to see an enumerated list of
adult topics before the program starts. You are beginning to see this now on
some television programs.

* Full Frontal Nudity * Drug use * Adult Language * etc.

Back to the EFF's true argument though, I fully agree that Shadow Regulations
are a tricky subject, which are becoming more threatening each year to free
speech and information discovery.

