L
Luminoso
Guest
via cnn.com
DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) -- EU justice chiefs took aim at violent
video games on Tuesday, agreeing to share information across the bloc
on which games to outlaw and how, but leaving the final decision on
bans with states themselves.
The executive European Commission said it would also draw up plans in
coming weeks to harmonise national penalties on retailers caught
selling such products to under-age children.
"These terrible things contribute to violence and sooner or later that
leads to police intervention," Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble said of violent video games, after EU justice ministers
discussed them at a meeting in Dresden.
Germany, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, will draw up a
comparative list of violent games banning procedures throughout the
bloc in a move that Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said would help
to share best practices.
But the EU's justice and security commissioner said it would not lead
to harmonised EU-wide bans.
"Each member state will decide which video games are violent and so to
be banned. It's not a decision to be taken in Brussels," Franco
Frattini told a news conference.
Frattini said he would however make a proposal to the bloc's justice
ministers in the first half of this year to harmonise sanctions on
retailers selling violent video games to children younger than the
label allows.
He said current controls in the bloc's 27 states were insufficient and
that too often retailers were not checking the age of young people
buying games which should not be sold to under 16-year olds.
Like China, it appears that the EU want's to "purify" cyberspace
of "un-PC" ideas too. I thought the EU was supposed to be all
"enlightened" and everything, the kind of people who would avoid
the totalitarian evils of censorship, thought-manipulation and
knee-jerk approaches to non-existent problems. There are plenty
of reasons for youth violence in europe, but video games aren't
one of them. The politicians are simply too afraid or too lazy
to address the real causes, preferring to burn a strawman or
two, and a civil-liberty or two, instead. Who needs "freedom"
after all ?
DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) -- EU justice chiefs took aim at violent
video games on Tuesday, agreeing to share information across the bloc
on which games to outlaw and how, but leaving the final decision on
bans with states themselves.
The executive European Commission said it would also draw up plans in
coming weeks to harmonise national penalties on retailers caught
selling such products to under-age children.
"These terrible things contribute to violence and sooner or later that
leads to police intervention," Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble said of violent video games, after EU justice ministers
discussed them at a meeting in Dresden.
Germany, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, will draw up a
comparative list of violent games banning procedures throughout the
bloc in a move that Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said would help
to share best practices.
But the EU's justice and security commissioner said it would not lead
to harmonised EU-wide bans.
"Each member state will decide which video games are violent and so to
be banned. It's not a decision to be taken in Brussels," Franco
Frattini told a news conference.
Frattini said he would however make a proposal to the bloc's justice
ministers in the first half of this year to harmonise sanctions on
retailers selling violent video games to children younger than the
label allows.
He said current controls in the bloc's 27 states were insufficient and
that too often retailers were not checking the age of young people
buying games which should not be sold to under 16-year olds.
Like China, it appears that the EU want's to "purify" cyberspace
of "un-PC" ideas too. I thought the EU was supposed to be all
"enlightened" and everything, the kind of people who would avoid
the totalitarian evils of censorship, thought-manipulation and
knee-jerk approaches to non-existent problems. There are plenty
of reasons for youth violence in europe, but video games aren't
one of them. The politicians are simply too afraid or too lazy
to address the real causes, preferring to burn a strawman or
two, and a civil-liberty or two, instead. Who needs "freedom"
after all ?
