It’s Time for Some Teen Work at Netflix
On platforms like Netflix, where the ratings don’t seem to factor into how the programs are listed, your middle schooler could be stumbling on all kinds of surprising content.
Most parents don’t hand their kids the remote on the “Teen TV” menu and expect them to be able to choose from “The End of the F—ing World,” “Sex Education,” or the suicide shocker, “13 Reasons Why.” But on platforms like Netflix, where the ratings don’t seem to factor into how the programs are listed, your middle schooler could be stumbling on all kinds of surprising content. Maybe, like a lot of moms and dads, you assume a TV-14 Netflix show is the same as TV-14 on broadcast television. Well, I’ve got news for you, entertainment writer Michael Foust said: “It’s not.”
Even vigilant parents can be duped by Netflix’s system, Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council warns. “When you look at their categories,” he told Sarah Perry on “Washington Watch” Friday, “what we quickly learned was that almost half of the titles that are labeled as ‘appropriate for teens’ are actually rated either R under the motion picture system or TV-MA meaning ‘Mature Audiences’ only. So, by definition, half of the shows that they’re saying are appropriate for teens are inappropriate for teens just [based on the] content rating system.”
Part of the problem, Tim explains, is that platforms like Netflix weren’t around in 1996 when the FCC created the ratings rules. “You’re talking about a rating system that was crafted 25 years ago before iPads and iPhones even existed — before Netflix existed. Before Amazon existed.” And while the technology has evolved, he points out, the system hasn’t. “And then… on top of that the antiquated way the guidelines are written, each distributor — whether it’s a TV network, a cable network, Netflix — each of these network rates its own content. There are supposed to be standards. But what we’ve seen is routinely these networks and distributors will rate things [as more innocent than they are] in order to get more children to watch, knowing that the content is actually inappropriate for children.”
In a brand-new report, just released by PTC for parents navigating this stay-at-home world, Tim’s team combed through 255 Netflix titles that were categorized by the streaming company as “appropriate for teens.” Half of them were either R-rated or “Mature Audiences” only. That’s a major problem, now that family streaming is through the roof. In the first three weeks of March alone, there was an 85 percent spike in television viewing — hitting historic levels of media consumption by Americans.
Of the 400 billion minutes people sat plunked in front of their televisions those three weeks, Netflix won the biggest share of the streaming pie with 29 percent — with YouTube (20 percent), Hulu (10 percent), and Amazon Prime (nine percent) falling in behind. “That’s particularly troubling,” the report points out, “because Netflix streams programming to cell phones, laptop computers, tablets and other devices that are routinely outside the purview of a parent.” And considering how the shows are labeled, “setting parental controls on those media devices will fail to do what parents expect.”
Even if, by some miracle, a TV-14 show does manage to avoid sex, drugs, violence, and suicide, there’s one thing parents can expect to hear no matter what: profanity. Another thing Tim learned is that “almost every single [TV-14] show included some of the harshest [language] — words that I would never, ever speak to you on a radio broadcast. You have to scratch your head [when] Netflix is saying that this is appropriate for teenage children. How are parents supposed to be able to trust a rating system that’s the right there on their program guide?”
It’s like going to the grocery store and looking at the ingredients on the back of a box, he says. “You’re thinking, should I buy this? So you look at the… nutritional value. And you’re relying on the accuracy of that information to decide whether or not you’re going to allow your family to ingest it into their bodies. It’s the same thing here — where you have inaccurately rated material that says it’s comprised of one thing, when in fact it’s comprised of something else. And it’s very unhealthy for us to be putting into our children’s minds. And that’s what is so galling that these so-called parental control devices. If the ratings are accurate, then the filtering devices can’t trigger and work properly.”
It’s not that parents aren’t making the best choices they can — it’s that the system isn’t giving them all the details to work with. “Parents deserve a ratings system that’s transparent and consistent across all platforms,” PTC insists. “If TV-14 doesn’t mean the same thing on Netflix as it does on CBS, it’s of little value to [anyone].” In the meantime, there are great options for families who don’t want to risk it, like VidAngel, Minno, Pure Flix, and RightNowMedia. Try an alternative you can trust!
Originally published here.
On Fraud, California’s Mail-in Ballots Deliver
“One of the reasons I believe in the resurrection,” Mike Huckabee once joked, “is because we’d see dead people vote every year!” Well, he’s about to make a lot of converts in California, where liberal Governor Gavin Newsom (D) just ordered a vote-by-mail system through November — a decision that’s scaring the daylights out of anyone who cares about ballot integrity. For all the talk of other countries meddling in our elections, they know as well as we do — the biggest threats are right here at home.
“I signed an executive order,” Newsom said, “that will allow every registered voter in California to receive a mail-in ballot.” Even, it turns out, if that voter isn’t alive to cast it. Shortly after the governor announced his decision, the California Globe pointed out that 458,000 residents who died or moved are still on the “active” rolls — meaning that a half-million ballots will be floating out there for the taking. Another 24,000 people, Election Integrity Project of California (EIPC) warns, will get two or more.
It’s a recipe, watchdogs say, for disaster. “We simply cannot go all vote-by-mail in November unless and until California’s voter lists are finally cleared of duplicated, deceased, relocated and other ineligible registrants,” EIPC’s Ellen Swensen argues. She’s right. Think about how competitive some of the state races were in 2018. According to Ballotpedia, 88 percent of them were decided by a margin of 0.5 percentage or less. Even a smidgeon of fraud could upend an entire race. But we’re not talking about a smidgeon of fraud — we’re talking about institutionalizing it across the biggest state in America.
Here’s the problem with this whole mail-in idea, MIT’s Election Lab explains. “First, the ballot is cast outside the public eye, and thus the opportunities for coercion and voter impersonation are greater. Second, the transmission path for vote-by-mail ballots is not as secure as traditional in-person ballots. These concerns relate both to ballots being intercepted and ballots being requested without the voter’s permission.” Put simply: there’s no oversight. There’s no way to guarantee that a ballot even gets to its destination — let alone counted once it’s there. “Once that ballot is out of the hands of the elector,” one official shook his head, “we have no idea what happens to it. The possibilities are numerous and scary.”
Combine that with the fact that California hasn’t cleaned up its voting records in 20 years, and the opportunities for cheating are everywhere. Los Angeles County alone, John Fund explains, has a voter registration rate of 112 percent of its adult citizen population. One of the few legitimate voters in that county, a Democrat, told the Los Angeles Daily News that the amount of pressure one door-to-door canvasser put on him “sent chills down [his] spine.” Imagine the level of harassment and intimidation that will take place when everyone’s voting from home. If activists will come to a Democrats’ house and scare him, no one is safe!
A change of this magnitude shouldn’t come by governor fiat either. This is a massive overhaul of the democratic process that Newsom is changing with a wave of his pen. “Gov. Newsom boasts California is the "first state” to make this change,“ Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R) tweeted. "Perhaps that’s because other states are still functioning democracies, where new laws need to pass a legislature.”
Not to mention, there’s no guarantee that state officials have enough time to implement a ballot-by-mail system by November — or test it to work out the kinks. As MIT’s Charles Stewart points out, the only thing worse than a universal mail-in system is one that leaders fast-track. “Hastily implemented changes to voting rules and laws can end up causing all types of problems that you didn’t anticipate.”
And by November, who’s to say there’s even a public health excuse for such a decision? If we can figure out a way to get to the grocery store, surely we can figure out a way to exercise our most basic civic duty. Democrats know that mail-in ballots are a “recipe for confusion, coercion, and fraud,” Fund says. That’s why they want them sent to every voter. But this isn’t just about 2020. It’s about 2022, 2024, and every election that comes after. Democrats, Republicans, Independents — we all have a stake in making the democratic system an honest one.
Originally published here.
Fit to Be Todd over ‘Meet the Press’ Fakery
The news is getting record viewers, but is it gaining back their trust? After a historically bad year for people’s confidence in the media, the coronavirus gave the industry a chance to make up ground. A chance, based on one weekend controversy, they’re squandering.
Eighty-three percent of Americans trust journalists to report honestly on the outbreak, Forbes says. But politics? That’s as full of fake news as ever. Over on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd couldn’t find a way to make the Trump administration look bad for dropping the case against Michael Flynn — so he did the next best thing. He had the network lie about what Attorney General William Barr actually said. It was all part of an interview with Peggy Noonan, where Todd asked how history would look on the decision by Attorney General William Barr. He played a clip of Barr saying that “History is written by the winners, so it largely depends on who’s writing the history.”
Todd went on to blast Barr, calling him a cynic who didn’t care about the rule of law. The same rule of law, it turns out, that the attorney general mentioned in that same statement — but NBC, for reasons of manipulation — did not include in the excerpt it aired. In fact, the network went to great lengths to cut around the statement, making Barr seem as flip and politically motivated as possible.
Of course, once word got out that Barr’s words had been wildly taken out of context, it was obvious where the real political motivation lies. Still, NBC — when confronted with the real footage — posted simply that it was an “error.” “An inadvertent” mistake. But there’s nothing inadvertent about cutting out a sentence in the very middle of your clip. It’s an intentional effort to mislead the viewer and malign William Barr.
Viewers know it. Chuck Todd knows it. The president knows it, and tweeted Monday, “@FCC This is a disgrace, even worse than @NBC usually is, which is really bad.” As the chorus grows for an on-air correction, don’t hold your breath. For the media, telling the truth would be just as “inadvertent.”
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
