After speaking with four people, it has been revealed that Common Sense Media has been using original work without permission and altering it to make it appear sinister. All four (three of whom are under 18) who responded confirmed that they were not asked permission from CSM.
"No, they never asked me for the use of my video."
"Nope they didn't ask for my permission :S Dumb!"
"In what company was my video used?!"
"I had no idea they were using my video, no they did not ask my permision."
Common Sense Media used fourteen different videos as part of a campaign attacking Lady Gaga for "sexually degrading messages." This video - currently accessible here - was created as an ad, appearing on their homepage for an extended period of time. It features a montage of online videos from toddlers and teens singing and dancing to Lady Gaga's "Love Game."
The very same CSM whose digital citizenship curriculum includes a unit titled "Respecting Creative Work." The same CSM who published four videos lecturing children as to why copying work without permission is bad.
Not only is this unauthorized use of creative work for promotional purposes, but it's projecting a message onto the videos that the creators (or for that matter their parents) may not approve of.
To quote from their own lesson: "Young people's notion that 'if it's on the Internet, it's free for the taking' has led to [...] a general lack of respect for the hard work and creativity of others."
CSM and Comcast/NBC
Common Sense was a major player in the Comcast and NBC merger of 2010. Both companies pointed to CSM as a reason to approve the merger, saying it would "give the combined entity incentives to invest in increased distribution of programming for children and families" and saying it would allow them to "expand their partnership" with CSM. This fact did not go without much criticism from many groups who were asked to offer up their feedback, like the Greenlining Institute.
Comcast promises to partner with Common Sense Media (CSM) and "[u]pon closing and pursuant to a plan to be developed with CSM, Comcast will devote millions of dollars in media distribution resources to support public awareness efforts over the next two years to further CSM's digital literacy campaign." Id. at p. 47. However, these resources are not definitively committed, and these public awareness efforts may look very similar to a marketing campaign for Comcast.
One of the oddest events in the merger was Comcast/NBC's request for confidentiality for their deals with CSM. Comcast asked the FCC for the entire deal to be withheld from public viewing, whereas NBC only asked for the license fee to be hidden. This is also interesting considering an internal retreat video from 2008 boasted how "on one of the worst days in our economic history" they signed an annual $825,000 contract with DirecTV. As Bloomberg put it:
Comcast recently requested, and received, an order obtaining enhanced confidential treatment of its carriage agreement with Common Sense Media ("CSM"). This selective submission raises more questions than it answers. [...] Comcast's October 22, 2010 request gives no reason that it singled out this document for production.
Therefore, Comcast cannot withhold documents on the basis that they contain sensitive business information, and the Commission's grant of enhanced confidential treatment to the CSM agreement should dispel any doubt on this point.
Common Sense's Lobbying Efforts
On the many occasions that CSM has taken a part in lobbying (which they have sometimes failed to account for on IRS forms), groups such as the Entertainment Software Association have had something to say.
Here, CSM's response to the FCC about the "Empowering Parents and Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape" inquiry is discussed. In their response, CSM pushed for more intrusive filtering software and digital citizenship curriculum; their own curriculum is mentioned repeatedly throughout the document.
Moreover, although Common Sense Media seeks to raise concerns about the ease and use of rating systems, it relies on data unrelated to the video game industry and that is from a source that separately found that nearly 60 percent of parents prefer the status quo to a universal rating system.
In contrast, third party resources (including Common Sense Media) providing information to parents assess, at best, a small percentage of the games that are published each year, and often go well beyond analyzing the age appropriateness of content to include editorial and other qualitative judgments about the game being reviewed.
In this second occasion, the ESA talks about Common Sense's roll in the Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007.
On the one hand, Common Sense Media asserts that "[p]arents are further confused by the multiplicity of filtering and blocking technologies available across multiple media platforms," yet, on the other hand, claims that the industry should expand the V-Chip technology to include "additional information and ratings."
Note: the reviews for the two books mentioned in this article were removed after it was published. CSM says they were "out for re-review." When the reviews went back up, the ratings were changed.
We'd love to hear from any past or present Common Sense Media employees with information on how they determine ratings, and their criteria for hiring reviewers. You can email us at contact (at) powertothecensors (dot) com.