Looking At Violent Video Games Now, Seeing Indecency In The Future

[Commentary] When the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a California law regulating the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, many First Amendment types like myself asked why. A key issue was whether the Court would carve out a new exception to the First Amendment. And the Court accepted the case just one week after it decided United States v. Stevens, in which it emphatically declined to create such a new exception for videos that show cruelty to animals. Why take another First Amendment case so soon? Perhaps the Court was signaling an intent to limit the Stevens decision to its particular facts (i.e., animal cruelty videos) by opening the door to regulation of violent video games marketed to human children. And if so, might the Court be opening the door to Federal Communications Commission regulation of violent programming? After the decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, it appears the Court knew exactly what it was doing.

Brown struck down the video game law, relying on Stevens in refusing to create another new kind of unprotected speech, even as to minors. Broadcasters should be happy. The decision clearly implies that the FCC does NOT have the authority to regulate violent programming. The decision also leads me to conclude that, perhaps more importantly, the Court will side against the FCC in FCC v. Fox Television Stations,the indecency case it accepted on the same day Brown was decided.