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You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college dropouts in the U.S. is online gaming addiction – such as World of Warcraft – which is played by 11 million individuals,” said FCC Chairman Deborah Taylor Tate in an address at the Practicing Law Institute (reported by Game Politics). Tate’s comments lacked clear supporting materials, coming after she’d loosely referenced unspecified surveys from 2006, nor did she provide any comparison to other oft-cited reasons such as “family responsibilities,” “financial reasons,” and “offered a good job.”

Those details are east to overlook when you’re citing and misrepresenting studies from 2006 and 2007 on internet usage and parental involvement to scare people into supporting your digital rights management and anti-net neutrality agendas. A little over a week ago, Tate spoke passionately on “how important digital rights management methods,” such as watermarking and fingerprinting, “are to enabling” new methods of electronic distribution. Additionally, she voiced her support against net neutrality, saying

It’s crucial that we not only allow operators to manage their networks, but to not tie their hands with prescriptive regulations. And make no mistake, “net neutrality” as network management is sometimes referenced in Washington and among political discussants, if implemented in its strictest form, will tie the hands of network operators. Digital fingerprinting and watermarking would not be possible if net neutrality is enforced in its harshest form.

Harshest form? In an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, Lawrence Lessig, the professor of law at Stanford University, founding member of Creative Commons, and one of the world’s most prominent minds on cyberlaw, eloquently described how the internet was founded on the basis of net neutrality, and without it, the possibilities for corruption and information control are nearly endless. Now remember, World of Warcraft was the first and only title Tate mentioned when addressing “online gaming addiction.” As gamers (and hopefully supporters of a free society), this sort of rhetoric from the head of the FCC causes some concern.

Previously: ‘FCC Comes Under Fire By Capitol Hill’

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