Thursday, July 10, 2014

DC newspaper offers editorial against captioning rules

The Washington Times has posted an editorial titled EDITORIAL: Captioning cat videos; The FCC wants every cute ‘meow’ thoroughly documented. The opinion piece comes as the FCC prepares to vote tomorrow on proposed captioning rules covering online video. The Times argues against the new rules, arguing,
"Federal intervention isn’t needed. The Internet is the great equalizer, inviting the blind, deaf and disabled, the lame and the halt, to participate in a global conversation with nobody needing to know the age, race, sex or handicap of participants. Government busybodies can’t resist the opportunity to tell people what to do. Two years ago, a federal judge cited the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law that tells supermarkets to install ramps enabling the wheelchair-bound to shop like the rest of us, to force Netflix, the video streaming giant, to caption its programming. This would have happened, anyway."
Read the full post here.