In the case of entities like the FCC, how they are now is in many ways quite unlike why they were created originally, but times change. Plus they are created by Congressional Act (47 U.S.C. §151 for the FCC) and so would be expected to morph and shift as government entities do, in line with the politics in effect when changes are made. That and the inherent manners that bureaucracy feeds off itself in such things.
Certainly, three-year-olds playing at recess can say anything they want, but the public interest songs on the radio need to be heavily censored for such words even at two-thirty in the morning, in case somebody's child may be listening to some gangster rap station on the radio at that time and have their young mind ruined by uncensored material. That by the way is sarcasm.
The original stated role of the FCC however is quite a bit more lofty in theory.
For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is created a commission to be known as the “Federal Communications Commission”, which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this chapter.That's all well and good, but that's just a TLA and governmentally created and operated. How about industry self-censors? Specifically, we'll focus on motion pictures and computer software.
The United States has a Bill of Rights, and firstmost within it is prohibition for the Federal Government to legislate religion, speech, press, assembly or petitioning of said Federal Government. The wording for the 1st is quite clear, although again in practice (further controlled by judicial interpretation of scope et al) just doesn't work as stated on the tin. Not any more and maybe never really. Still, let's go back to around 1790 and see the clarity and specificity without interference.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Now one may argue that neither motion pictures or computer software is speech - and perhaps that's true. One may also argue that the people in 1790ish didn't mean anything by speech except at church pulpits, in the town square, and in written text, handbills, and newspapers; that if they had known about movies and computer games they certainly wouldn't have written anything protecting them. This second argument is of course bogus and nonsense, there's a reason the wording in the rules (Constitution and Bill of Rights) is both clear and non-specific (or if you wish vague and specific) so what they said would mean something then and also not wear out later. That it would set a precedent that could later be applied to similar concepts, much like chisel on stone is ink on paper is sound waves in grooves is spots in patterns on an LCD display is moving images is music. (Which of course music has been around for quite a while too and often has words with it.)
It's not just the words we have spelled out in the rules, the people that wrote all the material in the rules also wrote a very large amount of accompanying material. Far more exissts on the discussions and legal basis and later ramifications of having these things written just so. Purposely crafted as they ended up, rather than the many working copies that didn't make it out as written. The authors knew what they were trying to do and they wrote about it at length in general terms and to each other as they went along. They also were aware that many at the time and later would not know language well enough to get the nuances, but that they could only go so far as to make things work the way they should work even still. Modern people often seem to have this odd way of thinking of those from the past; either they were infallible super-geniuses to be held to higher standards than mere mortals, or they were idiots that had no idea of what the future might hold, possessing a severe lack of imagination. Neither of those is true. They just didn't have the same tech we do.
Be that as it all may, let's switch to now, or at least more recent.
The MPAA started out as a trade association in 1922 of the 8 most prominent studios (producing abou8t 3/4 of the movies at the time) for essentially economic purposes. Along the way, due to the hodgepodge of local laws affecting any violence or sexuality as existed in the US in the 1920s, and the often negative publicity the studios gathered from various place,the MPAA worked to standardize content. This was from the standpoint that if there was a certain standard (necessarily low) then localities wouldn't cut down films to the point where few moviegoers would to see the resulting work. The Production Code in the 30s was supported by the studios. Some stumbles followed (the Depression, World War II, various trends in the 40s and 50s and 60s) under the leadership of various men. Now, currently the self-censorship is more of a set of numbers/letters showing five grades (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) that lets people know what they can expect from a movie in case they are morally against something or don't want their children to see such things or don't want to see anything made for children. Only the last two ratings have an actual stated restriction on them; R is 'under 17 needs an adult along', NC-17 is 'nobody under 17'. The first three are more suggestions, although theaters are free to put more limits or less limits on this, and are also subject to a variety of reactions to such from either the MPAA or from consumers or activists. In the case of videos of these sold, retailers are free to set higher or lower limits as well. Either way, none of these ratings has any force of law behind them, but anyone releasing a public movie to be used under the MPAA in mainstream studio release in the US is economically and socially required to do so. Otherwise the film would be unrated, and many if not all corporate theaters would not show it. This (in the face of non-network broadcast and cable TV, and the Internet) has become less stringent and absolute as it was 5 to 20 years ago however. And as any such large group (a bureaucracy akin to a government organization in many ways, but with no force of law in and of itself) it has a life of its own.
Are film ratings by a single somewhat omni-powerful entity that is just an industry group a good thing? A bad thing? Does it not matter? If you're sitting in a theater watching interminable commercials for upcoming films, being in an R rated film and seeing previews themselves marked as all audiences, and hearing all about what the MPAA thinks is annoying to many. Yet it's what there is, and how it now works.
The ESRB is a largely different yet very similar sort of group. It never had to deal with the studio system or 1920s era morality and laws in a non-tech world, the threats to movies were never as large and widespread (recent) as the threats to games, and selling (games to individuals) isn't the same as showing (movies to the public). Otherwise, there's not too much different, in that some number of the seven full time raters in NYC sample a game from provided content forms, a render an opinion on the content of something, and so on. Thus the ESRB assigns ratings for a variety of purposes and reasons, mostly economic consumer-facing reasons. It's industry not government, self-regulatory and pervasive. The ESRB was created by the largest video game publishers (ESA) in 1994 in reaction to criticism and controversy over extreme violence (mostly) and sexual situations. Such as those things existed digitally in 1994 at least; which essentially pre-90s was in large part a non-issue, given how graphics and sound were on computers and the expense of such devices before the 90s. It wasn't until the fear of federal regulation arose in a large public noisy manner that the system went from here and there by some publishers to essentially everywhere by all of them.
The ratings start with the Rating Pending but as RP games aren't actually on sale, this doesn't really count. Then there are a bunch of letters/numbers that are essentially 'ages and up' appropriate content ; 3, 6, 10, 13, 17, 18 (EC, E, E10+, T, M, AO)
Many stores (physical or on the Internet) won't sell certain rated games to certain people, and largely do not carry unrated (non-ESRB rated) games. This isn't surprising given that most publishers are the ESRB, and don't produce them to begin with. Mostly (near universally) no major physical or digital distributions, retail or on gaming consoles, even produce AO games. This effectively removes the highest age rating from actually being one that exists.
None of these ratings have any "must" wording like R and NC-17 movies do though. They are all recommendations, yet ones that are followed by almost all legitimate retail sources of sales. This doesn't often form a problem in implementation, since just about no one lets their games get an AO rating (and most nobody will sell the very few that are) andd most sales methods filter ages to at or above 17 anyway. Stores such as Wal-Mart or Gamestop will ask for ID even for cash sales of M games (and if they feel like it even T or E10+ of course) and can or do require purchasers to be over 18 or even 21. Methods online using credit cards require some sort of identification of the cardholder; financial institutions generally have issues with providing cards to those who can't enter into contracts to pay back credit or who can't legally be a single owner of a savings account with a debit card.
Perhaps most telling in how things work. In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (564 US 08-1448 2011) the US Supreme Court found (7-2 no less) that video games are protected speech. Only about one out of twenty mainstream games are rated M (and most of the other nineteen from E10+ and T) yet M rated games are a third of the highest selling and critically acclaimed. Yet still when underaged test purchasers attempt to purchase M rated games (such as those appearing questionable without subterfuge such as fake identification) only a few (one out of six or one out of eight) is able to do so; usually simply because of an error by a customer-facing employee on a procedural matter of retailer policy. Online, the entire issue of payment method is a built-in age restriction mechanism. Even before that on the demand side, there is also that the marketing of games rated T are not glamorized as to the potentially disturbing elements (like smoking cigarettes or saying heck to one's elders), and those rated M are focused only on appropriate demographics to begin with (those who are typical adults, rather than to monks and grade-school children ).
Is all this a good, bad, or indifferent thing? Why not all of them.
Some have suggested that the system is rather lopsided and confused with itself, given that a game like Halo 3 has the same rating as a game like Saint's Row 3. Then there's the entire genre of music/music edutainment/simulation rhythm games (Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero, Band Fuse, Just Dance) that are all T, where any number of songs are either radio edits to begin with or have any the objectionable parts just not there. This is true for some lyrics even if they normally are on the radio every time they're played and the changes are a choice of the game producer or publisher and not required to receive a T rating. For illustrations of the latter, songs like Killing in the Name of are missing the end of the song in lieu of extensive editing because it would be M otherwise. On the other hand American Pie has the "good ole boys drinking and rye" and Number of the Beast is blank in the phrases of how nuclear war would affect even the most innocent. Both of the last songs are broadcast allowed, or at least they used to be. So when it comes to these games, if you are an adult and want uncensored songs there, forget it, even for the downloadable ones. That is, there is no M or nearly so material. Although in multiplayer, other players might be swearing as much as they want to, as the disclaimer notes. Just like when you were in kindergarten or college, or last night at the casino or concert. The song in the software, that is vastly different, at least before the fact. (And indeed online controls allow blocking anyone from interacting online, just in case such ruffians are about.)
Maybe this is just a case of people forgetting we all know all these words and concepts just as soon as we start realizing everything else, or maybe it's the idea that morality can be legislated and that hearing and seeing things warps ones minds. Although it's certain that learned behaviors are learned, and that humans are social animals. While likely nobody should be letting children into movies like Clockwork Orange or into events like the Republican National Convention or playing games like Grand Theft Auto IV there are ways to control such things, most of which currently work pretty well even if they are so far away from their original intent to be unrecognizable. Even if the benefit derived is inconsequential (to life on Earth) or only serves to make those overseeing such things feel as if they're doing something or to keep them out of trouble. Both perhaps.
Just remember though the next time you see some rating or another, that these things are somebody's opinion, but that they serve a purpose. Not that that purpose is always worthwhile, or that the mechanisms are always properly implemented.
