This week Laura Parker from Gamespot wrote a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald in support of an R18+ rating for video games, but now they’ve posted a retort, from Elizabeth Handley, Professor of Law at Flinders University, and the president of the Australian Council on Children and the Media.
We recommend reading the entire post here, but here’s a selected quote.
She has confirmed once again the fundamental contradiction at the heart of those arguments. Excessively violent material is being incorrectly classified as MA15+ and so made available to minors, but, at the same time, adults are being denied the civil liberty of playing what they want.
That’s right: material that should be reserved for adults is being made available to minors. Yet somehow this is denying adults access to the material they want and deserve, because they are adults. You can’t have it both ways.
Another contradiction: we need to be concerned about minors’ access to violent material … and yet there is a ‘lack of conclusive scientific evidence’ that violent material is harmful. Again, you can’t have it both ways.
Even if you have issues with this piece and completely disagree with it, it’s still worth reading the piece to get an idea of the reasons why some are in opposition to the introduction of an R18+ rating.
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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