In a 7 to 2 vote, the court upheld a lower court’s decision that California’s law imposing a $1,000 fine on those who sell or rent violent video games to minors violated free-speech rights. However, there was more disagreement on the court than that tally would indicate.
Many other participants and experts have been similarly baffled; social scientists and parents debate whether video games represent a new and frightening phenomenon with dangerous psychological effects, or simply trigger unproven fears that accompany any new technology.
It was the court’s first examination of a trend that has reached into two-thirds of American homes and created a multibillion-dollar industry. Lawmakers across the country, catering to parents worried about a technology their children understand better than they do, have passed laws banning the sale of violent video games to minors, and other states want the option. Courts have struck down each of those attempts.
Writing for the majority, Justice Scalia said, “like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas and even social messages” that are guarded by the First Amendment.
“No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”
However, other Justices such as Alito and Roberts wrote that they would have been more open to the case if perhaps framed in a better argument set.
(아주경제 앤드류 이 기자)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com