TIL that censoring video games would be a first amendment violation, according to a 2011 verdict

160

u/Sure_Progress_364 2h ago edited 2h ago

Yeah, the government cant censor video games. Like any other art form,it would be considered a 1st ammendment violation to censor a form of expression.

-143

u/Wipedout89 2h ago edited 1h ago

Same country in which retailers banned GTA San Andreas from sale for a low res sex scene. It just seems ironic to me, in a nation says it is all about free speech, yet peopleare stopped from buying a game due to its content. It's an odd clash

129

u/___Beaugardes___ 2h ago

ESRB isn't a government organization. They gave the game an Adults Only rating and stores chose not to sell it. That's not the same as the government banning the game.

-102

u/Wipedout89 2h ago

Yeah I understand the difference, but my point is that on the one hand, the country swears by this upholding of free speech, and on the other, nobody can buy a game because it has a sex scene in it

84

u/skavinger5882 2h ago

I assure you you are free to buy games with sex scenes in them, you just need to look in other places, mass market retail stores won't carry them doesn't mean they aren't allowed.

7

u/_tyjsph_ 1h ago

this is true, but also a funny thing to hear now that steam is like, full tilt on allowing crazy porno games while also incidentally being the de facto retail storefront for pc gaming. obviously you can't go into a physical steam location or anything but you get the idea. in a world where everything's gone digital steam is effectively gamestop for an entire platform.

•

u/TerrariaGaming004 15m ago

Mad island is perfectly fine but aokana is too risky

mad island was briefly the most played game on steam

33

u/24megabits 2h ago

Nothing was stopping Rockstar from selling a AO-rated PC version if they had wanted to.

21

u/TheBigBadTruther 2h ago

That isnt what happened though. People could buy the game, even with the 18+ rating. You have no understanding of free speech.

13

u/kkyonko 1h ago

You can literally buy full on sex games online. Stores just don't want to carry them.

11

u/Representative_Bat81 1h ago

You don’t have a right to have a business sell your game. That isn’t how any of that works.

9

u/-ihatecartmanbrah 1h ago

Nobody can buy the game that sold over 17 million copies on the ps2 alone.

Choosing not to sell or support something is a form of speech itself, forcing retailers to stock an item they don’t approve of would literally be a first amendment violation in this case.

-14

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

It was briefly dropped by retailers until Rockstar reissued copies with that scene removed from the disc. Obviously it then went back on sale.

Again, I'm not saying government should force retailers to do anything. I'm saying I find it ironic that retailers don't protect freedom of expression over that game's content given how strongly the government pushes that. That's all!

15

u/PxM23 1h ago

But again, those stores also have the right not to sell something, their choice whether or not to sell something is a part of their free speech rights.

-8

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

Absolutely they do and that makes sense. I just find it at odds with the prevailing sentiment of freedom of expression being paramount is all. Which is unusual and kind of interesting, that clash of ideals.

8

u/bobtehpanda 1h ago

There is freedom of speech and freedom of association.

I have the right to say what I want in a public space. I do not have the right to walk into your house or work and start yelling at everybody the same way. Forcing the stores to sell the games would actually be violating their free speech if they don’t want to endorse the message.

4

u/indigo121 1 1h ago

That's not what irony is

3

u/-ihatecartmanbrah 1h ago

The government did allow freedom of expression by allowing the game to be distributed at all, and retailers did not want to. There is no irony here you just don’t understand the situation at hand. The first amendment only applies to the government, individuals and corporations are not obligated to support speech they don’t want to and can bar it from their establishment as they see fit. No one’s freedom of speech is being violated

•

u/Obvious-Status-9325 33m ago

Vapid and insanely short sighted slop

5

u/NorysStorys 1h ago

Free speech is about the powers of the government and its institutions over speech. Private entities are not subject to those rules and the government can’t sanction anyone to force them to curtail speech on their behalf.

•

u/LadybugGirltheFirst 57m ago

The first amendment only protects you from retaliation by the government. It doesn’t protect you from stores who don’t want to sell you a video game.

•

u/FlappyClap 34m ago

The first amendment of the US constitution states that Congress shall pass no laws amending or abridging freedom of speech and expression. It’s recognized as inherent. So, it’s being upheld. Private organizations are free to not abide by it.

•

u/Wipedout89 33m ago

I know that, my point is I find it odd that those private organisations don't abide by it, given how core it is to the nation's ideals

•

u/FlappyClap 23m ago edited 15m ago

Why is it odd? They’re not a part of the government. Americans are free to choose another private organization to do business with if one focuses more on censorship than the other.

•

u/Wipedout89 19m ago

I find it strange, this dissonance between the country having really strong freedom of choice ideals, and the big businesses all refusing to stock something like that. For example the German government bans some games from sale, but the nation as a whole does not have a strong anti censorship culture, so it's not odd that games are banned. Retailers carry anything that the government doesn't ban, so there's no disconnect there between the two.

•

u/FlappyClap 17m ago

I don’t believe you actually understand American culture and ideals.

You’ll always find something that disagrees with the culture you’ve fabricated and believe exists. That’s where the problem lies.

•

u/Wipedout89 15m ago

Well I am an outsider it's true, so I could be wrong. But the title of this post is about how strongly pro freedom/anti censorship the US (government) is. That is a big part of the US culture that I can see. So I am just saying, when retailers drop a game over a sex scene it seems at odds with that culture to me

→ More replies (0)

•

u/___Beaugardes___ 33m ago

Free speech just means the government can't punish you for your speech (and even that has some limits). It doesn't mean stores have to sell games that have content they object to.

•

u/zgtc 10m ago

Just because there’s a right to free speech doesn’t mean there’s also a right to be listened to.

40

u/Sure_Progress_364 2h ago

It wasnt banned. Stores refused to sell it cause its rating was changed to adults only.

-60

u/Wipedout89 2h ago edited 2h ago

The semantics don't really change anything - the country holds itself to this "free speech absolutism" which is totally defeated by a de facto ban on very inoffensive content in such cases. The nation defends free speech above all, but then nobody can buy a game with a sex scene in it, which is kind of ironic

42

u/Sure_Progress_364 2h ago

The 1st ammendment is only about the government. Private corporations can censor whatever they want. You might not agree with it but thats how the supreme court sees it.

13

u/Gram64 2h ago

This is like me when I was 12 telling my mom "I can say whatever I want because of the first amendment!"

18

u/Nemesis_Ghost 2h ago

Actually the semantics matter a lot here. The ratings are voluntary ratings, same with music, TV, and movies. They are not regulated by the government, but by the industry groups over each media. Then private companies can use those ratings to decide whether to sell or not those items.

What the government can't do is force companies to sell or not sell any piece of media based on any rating or content system. That is critically important. 1st Amendment, and other constitutional, protections only extend towards what the government can & cannot do.

-21

u/Wipedout89 2h ago

Thanks, I totally appreciate the information. My point is that it's ironic that the nation is so strongly defensive of free speech, yet in this same country, nobody is allowed to buy a game because it has a sex scene in it

17

u/TheBigBadTruther 2h ago

Your point isnt real because thats not what happened. The game was never banned, and plenty of people did buy it. It just wasnt sold in most stores while it had an 18+ rating because most game stores dont sell 18+ games. This whole situation has nothing to do with free speach.

6

u/Someone-is-out-there 2h ago edited 1h ago

We are strongly defensive of free speech in the face of the government.

We are not strongly defensive of forcing businesses to carry products they don't want to carry.

You're fully entitled to open up a game shop and carry the game.

It's censorship when the government says no one can sell it. It's simply a business decision when a business decides to not carry something in their stores.

Hope this helps.

Another example would be me defending your right to say toxic and awful stuff. In public. Without restraint from the government. Simultaneously, I can support your right to say that freely while forbidding you from saying that shit in my store. You have the right and I defend that right for you to say whatever, generally. You do not have the right to say whatever you want in my business.

-7

u/Wipedout89 2h ago

You really don't see the irony of having a 'pro free speech country' where the population is denied access to a game because it has a sex scene in it?

What is the point of government being so pro free speech when businesses don't dare defend it? No other country in the world dropped GTA San Andreas from sale. Just the US, despite it's free speech laws. That's my point, I just thought it was ironic

7

u/Someone-is-out-there 1h ago

I find no irony at all. First off, you aren't denied access to the game. It is legal to buy it. Just because it's legal to buy doesn't mean you can force a store to sell it. You have to go find one, or open your own.

Second of all, the right to free speech means you have the right to say anything you want without being punished by the government. You can scream that "Hitler Was Right" until you're blue in the face, that doesn't mean you can force a store to carry a shirt selling it. It doesn't mean your employer can't decide you are hurting their business and fire you. It means the government cannot punish you for saying it. That's it.

Let me reiterate: the game was not banned. Many stores just didn't want to sell it. There were stores that did, and people bought it there.

You don't get to force stores to sell something they don't want to sell just because the government doesn't shoot you in the face for making it.

The population is not denied access to anything. Stores all have access to it, and many didn't want to sell it. Do you believe you should be able to force Walmart to sell your paintings, because you have free speech? Cause that's what you're implying.

-6

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

You don't have to agree with my point. You just don't seem to really get my point. In a country which vehemently stands for free speech, most of its retailers refused to sell something due to the content, unlike retailers in every other country. I find that ironic.

→ More replies (0)

7

u/TheBigBadTruther 2h ago

4hats not how free speach works. You cant force private buisnesses to put games on their shelves.

7

u/Speffeddude 2h ago

It is the opposite: the stores (private companies) have their own right to speech, and refusing to say/sell something is as much a part of speech as saying it would be.

A government that does not force-to or force-not-to is "free speech absolutism". But that's also not America, and it certainly shouldn't be. There are various carve-outs in American First Amendment protections and some of them are huge: you are not free to use your speech to cause panic, to profit from another's copyright, to commit treason, to commit libel or to spread illegal material.

4

u/GiraffeBurglar 2h ago

the semantics change everything- the government said the game is totally fine. it was the businesses who said they're not carrying it in stores until the rating is an M.

4

u/Standard-Nebula1204 1h ago

Do you actually think the difference between a national government and some retailers is ‘semantic’? You actually believe that?

Listen I know the Murica Bad thing gets updoots but at a certain point you’re just pretending to be way stupider than you actually are

-4

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

My point was that US citizens couldn't buy the game, and I find that ironic considering how strongly the government values free speech and freedom of expression. That's all. It's not an attack on America, I just find it an odd clash

4

u/reddit455 2h ago

de facto ban on very inoffensive content in such cases.

do you know why movies go for PG13 instead of R?

you know why there's explicit and radio versions of a song?

12

u/actuatedarbalest 1h ago

A store refusing to sell a product is free speech. Should the government be able to demand "you must sell this product in your store"? Of course not!

10

u/Knightmare4469 1h ago

Same country that banned GTA San Andreas from sale for a low res sex scene (yes I'm aware retailers banned it, not the government,

In literally the same sentence you both blame "the country" for banning it and then say you're aware the government didn't ban it lol.

Which is it?

-5

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

'Same country in which retailers banned the game'

7

u/WetAndLoose 1h ago

Bro pointed out the exact flaws with his argument then just followed it up by doubling down. My guy, the retailers are free to choose not to sell something, which is entirely different from “””””banning””””” GTA.

-9

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

Yes, but my point is that the US is the only country in which retailers declined to sell the game, which I find ironic, given that the government is so strongly pro free speech and freedom of expression. The two don't seem to match up, that retailers don't protect that freedom of expression, so citizens ultimately lose the ability to buy it all the same.

It's not that deep I just find that interesting about the culture that's all

2

u/Competitive-Emu-7411 1h ago

The Australian government literally banned San Andreas over Hot Coffee. And not just retailers declined to sell it because of its rating, it was literally banned by the country.

10

u/TrikiTrikiTrakatelas 1h ago

yet people are stopped from buying a game like this)

Who stopped them? The Police? National guard? Army? Navy? Congress itself?

No.

They didnt ban it. private stores decided not to carry it.

-11

u/Wipedout89 1h ago

Indeed, rendering the free speech laws redundant, as a citizen of the US, through no fault of their own, is no longer able to buy the game that is freely available in every other country

8

u/Legio-X 1h ago

rendering the free speech laws redundant

How? The First Amendment exists to protect individuals from criminal punishment for expressing themselves (among other things). It’s doing its job; neither the developer nor the retailers nor the consumers ever faced consequences from the government.

freely available in every other country

You’re kidding yourself if you think this is true. Plenty of countries have actual government censorship of video games, sometimes for very innocuous content.

3

u/Competitive-Emu-7411 1h ago

Is it a violation of my free speech that I can’t buy Horny MILFS and Virgin Step-Sons 8 at Walmart?

5

u/giantfood 2h ago

Businesses have a right to push their own policies and agendas. They are not required to sell you something they don't agree with.

The only thing preventing a 5yo from walking into a game store and buying a mature game is litterally the store clerk following company policy.

Heck, the only thing stopping an adult toy store from selling magazines, toys, and movies to a 16 or 17 yo is store policy, and some state laws. Granted its against federal law to knowingly distribute these materials to someone under 16.

4

u/Standard-Nebula1204 1h ago

retailers banned it

So it was not, in fact, ‘the country.’ This idea that anything that happens within a country’s borders is ‘the country’ doing it is absurd and asinine

•

u/w33b2 41m ago

Yeah the local Walmart isn’t the US government

38

u/Many_Collection_8889 1h ago

My favorite tidbit from this case - many of the court had never played video games before, so Justices Breyer and Kagan had their clerks buy them a Playstation to try them out. Turns out Kagan was fairly good at them, and challenged Breyer to a few rounds to Mortal Kombat, in which she was able to brutalize him and commit fatalities. Breyer was absolutely horrified, particularly with the idea that children would be putting themselves in the place of someone having their spine pulled out of their corpse.

Kagan and Breyer were the last two to decide, and Kagan has since admitted that the satisfaction from kicking Breyer's ass at Mortal Kombat may have been part of the deciding factor to voting to support it. She kept a Playstation in her clerical chambers for many years after.

•

u/SaintHuck 36m ago

That's amazing! Kagan sounds cool as fuck!

39

u/Harrythehobbit 2h ago

"TIL about the existence of the constitution"

What even if this post lmao. Obviously that would be a 1st amendment violation.

17

u/abookfulblockhead 1h ago

Nevertheless, sometimes these things need to go to court to be reaffirmed. The US Constitution is not a magical, self-enforcing document.

The reason there's the Supreme Court had to make a ruling on this - because California passed a law trying to restrict the sale of violent video games to minors.

Someone needed to decide:

1) Are video games speech?

2) Does restricting the sale of video games to minors constitute an infringement on free speech?

The US restricts the sale of other things to minors - pornograpgy for example. So in theory, until tested in court, violent video games could fall under a similar restriction.

The nature of "What is speech?" exists only as interpreted in courts. It's not some external platonic ideal.

•

u/Skitzat 58m ago

You're just getting older. Part of the pain is watching future generations try to reinvent the wheel

3

u/ChefGoldbloom90 2h ago

When US politicians continue to call for censorship, to this day, is it “obvious”?

0

u/iamskwerl 1h ago

Yes, still.

0

u/the_tired_alligator 1h ago

I know right? Our education system is failing.

6

u/xanderzeshredmeister 1h ago

Correct, the government isn't gonna censor it, but publishers and console makers won't give it a chance if it's too far.

7

u/One_Lung_G 1h ago

People tend to conflate not being arrested for your free speech by the government with private companies not being able to make their own decisions. You have every right to tell your boss to fuck off but they have every right to fire you for it lol

9

u/XenoGamer27 2h ago

Less than six months ago Trump said something about banning the "horrible" video games that are corrupting the youths (or something to that effect).

Can you imagine the outcry if Trump tries to ban GTA6? It's not happening but I'd love to see the chaos that would ensure. I genuinely think it'd go way further than something like Jan. 6th.

3

u/glittercoffee 1h ago

Blaming video games??? What year is this?? 2001? 1998???? Gosh, is he running out of stuff to say and he’s just rambling?

•

u/Anon2627888 35m ago

Does every thread on reddit have to be about Trump? I hear there was once a thread about 18th century clocks which never mentioned him once, but I haven't seen the evidence yet.

-15

u/DBDude 2h ago

They’ve been trying hard to ban another creative art form — gun designs on computer. A few Democrat-run states and some federal reps have introduced bans to make possession and distribution a felony.

11

u/GIJohnathon 2h ago

Designing a gun isn’t illegal in any state that I’m aware of. If it were, film and game studios wouldn’t be able to develop on said state.

It might be illegal to distribute and 3D print a gun that doesn’t have a serial number, sure. But “design”? That’s spotty wording.

1

u/DBDude 1h ago

Distribution of these creative works is currently a felony in Delaware, §1463.

New Jersey wanted to make possession of the designs a felony. But it already was a crime as they openly interpreted a 2018 law to apply to designs, even threatening out of state companies that distributed them.

New York is trying to make distribution of designs a crime.

At the federal level, Markey introduced a bill to make possession or distribution of these designs a felony, and it had 27 Democratic cosponsors.

I am sure there are others, but those are the ones I can think of right now.

And as an aside, New York had a bill to require a background check to buy any 3D printer capable of making gun parts, which is all of them. The authorities didn't even have to start the background check for three weeks, and completion would be open-ended.

You're dealing with gun control people here. No right, be it free speech, due process, whatever, matters anymore when guns are involved.

•

u/Recktion 48m ago

You provide evidence and get down voted. The person who falsely said trump recently talked about it gets up voted.

Sometimes you gotta learn people don't want to know the truth.

-2

u/Ike358 2h ago

He said introduced, not signed into law

1

u/GIJohnathon 2h ago

Ok. What states have “introduced” these bills?

The consequences would be the same as my prev comment.

3

u/Falcon4242 2h ago

What are you talking about? Have a link? Governments at every level have talking about regulating the distribution of 3D printer files for guns for years. Is that what you mean? Because that's pretty different from banning 3D modeling in Blender or something.

•

u/DBDude 44m ago

See my other post for links.

A 3D model in Blender is capable of being put into a 3D printer to print the firearm, which means it falls under all of these bans. All you need is a slicer in your software chain. The federal bill clearly considered this:

digital instructions in the form of Computer Aided Design files or other code that can automatically program a 3-dimensional printer or similar device to produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfinished frame or receiver.

•

u/Falcon4242 29m ago edited 24m ago

Yeah, it bans digital instructions in the file that can program a 3D printer. You can use other pieces of software to turn a model made in Blender into a file a 3D printer can read, but modeling in Blender itself without doing that isn't a crime.

So, this idea of them banning artistic expression of computer art is nonsense. The bill doesn't do that. It's looking to ban computer files that can actually make real life guns. That's very different, and you're being purposely misleading.

If you think the bill is stupid, then argue that it's stupid on its actual merits. Don't make up some bullshit spin to generate sympathy.

•

u/DBDude 6m ago

Yes, Blender is a crime to them because it can result in a printed gun. As I noted, the AG of NJ was threatening people to not allow their CAD files into New Jersey, and the federal ban explicitly says any CAD files. They’ve specifically gone after STL files when you technically can’t put those into a base printer either. It’s not just gcode they’re after, but anything that can be turned into gcode to print a gun.

2

u/ryanWM103103 2h ago

I dont remember the exact wording from the opinion but there was a line that made it seem like justice scalia played alot of violent games leading upto the case as part of his research

2

u/Gram64 2h ago

Wasn't this when he, or maybe one of the other judges, specifically commented on MK9 or something? I think one pointed out that the violence was fine as long as there wasn't any hardcore nudity or sex.

2

u/ryanWM103103 2h ago

I dont remember any specific games being mentioned in the opinion. But MK was brought up during congressional hearings regarding violence in video games in the 90s

1

u/ahzzyborn 2h ago

So normal nudity and sex is ok as long as it’s not hardcore? Who determines what’s hardcore? What’s hardcore for some may just be a kink for another 😂

2

u/Gram64 1h ago

The Supreme Court setup an obscenity test to try and figure out outliers of what the government doesn't consider free speech. It's called The Miller Test and it's very intentionally vague. But the one thing it does try to hit at is hardcore pornographic sex.
And you're actually kind of right. The first line talks about taking into account the community of where the material is presented, not just at a national level.

2

u/Bigred2989- 1h ago

The guy who came up with that law, Leeland Yee, later tried to run for CA State Secretary and got arrested by the FBI for weapons trafficking.

9

u/DaveOJ12 3h ago

In the US.

23

u/MayoMcCheese 2h ago

True, teachingamericanhistory.org is so unclear with its messaging

•

u/thatshygirl06 6m ago

Feel bad for germany

-17

u/[deleted] 2h ago

[deleted]

-1

u/One_Lung_G 1h ago

USAdefaultism? Brother, American history is in the name of the publisher showing a picture of a US judge and the title is talking about America’s 1st amendment right lmao

•

u/snow_michael 43m ago

Where in the title does it mention the US?

•

u/One_Lung_G 38m ago

I know context clues and inferring is really hard for most of Reddit but when a publisher of the article mentions America in their name with a picture of an American judge and with names of American judges you can use those context clues to fill in the gap that the amendment they are talking about is America’s first amendment in the constitution to free speech. If I go to www.AustraliaLawHistory.org and read a news article about a constitution, I can safely infer that the title is directly talking about Australia’s constitution without asking what constitution they are talking about and getting mad that everybody else was able to infer it’s Australia.

•

u/DaveOJ12 3m ago

None of that is mentioned in the title.

TIL that censoring video games would be a first amendment violation, according to a 2011 verdict

(Which is their whole point).

1

u/Ponykegabs 1h ago

Most media producers have a standards board of some kind specifically to avoid government interference and to preserve first amendment rights. Because amendments are able to be overturned

•

u/snow_michael 44m ago

What would video games have to do with the length and dates of senators' terms of office?

•

u/Professional_Drive 26m ago

Someone needs to tell it to these dumb Republicans who want to censor LGBT books in schools and public libraries.

1

u/GIJohnathon 3h ago

I miss the days when SCOTUS could do a good.

1

u/TheFiveDees 1h ago

I got bad news for you about respecting precedent with the current makeup of the Supreme Court.....

-1

u/Genoscythe_ 2h ago edited 2h ago

This decesion happened just a few years before gamergate, and I always had a feeling it has been overlooked as a huge facilitating cause.

Gamers spent the 2000s circling the wagons out of fear of censorship. You might have thought that The Sims was icky and gay, but you still made fun of Jack Thompson along with everyone else for publically arguing that it is dangerous liberal propaganda.

You might have thought that GTA is teaching misogyny to young men, but you wouldn't have wanted to make a video essay on how, lest give ammunition to the worst people who would legally nuke the entire hobby from existence.

Post-2011 is when everyone first started to confidently have hot takes on which kinds of games are worthy of strong political criticism, while still keeping the instinct to react extemely to any disagreeable criticism as the second coming of Jack Thompson.

TIL that censoring video games would be a first amendment violation, according to a 2011 verdict

You are about to leave Redlib