For those of you as passionate about Internet captions as Lipreading Mom is, we have some powerful fans on our side. Memorize these names: U.S. Representative Edward Markey (Massachusetts) and U.S. Congressman Mark Pryor (Arkansas).
Rep. Markey and Congressman Pryor authored the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. This legislation is the cornerstone of seeing that previously televised videos posted on the Internet be captioned.
On January 10th, Markey and Pryor wrote the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), emphasizing the importance of making sure previously broadcast TV videos that were captioned on television also be captioned on the Internet. This is due in part to, as their letter stated:
– Increasing numbers of people in the U.S. are watching programming on the Internet.
– Many of these people prefer Internet over TV broadcasting as their source for news, sports, entertainment, and other information.
– Without regulation of whether videos on the Internet are captioned, a broad base of viewers wouldn’t be guaranteed the ability to understand the videos (i.e., the deaf and hearing loss populations).
To read the January 10th letter to the FCC, click here.
To thank U.S. Rep. Markey and follow his efforts, click here.
To thank and follow U.S. Congressman Pryor’s work, click here.
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Join the Lipreading Mom/CCAC Internet Captions Campaign to push for more Internet captioning.
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