Posted on 07/05/2014 11:42:37 AM PDT by PoloSec
The Obama administration is set to decide next week on whether online video clips must include closed captioning -- a rule that if approved would help hearing-impaired viewers but could prove costly and time-consuming for businesses.
The five-member Federal Communications Commission will vote Friday on the proposed rule change, which will apply specifically to clips that have already appeared on TV with captions and would follow a similar, 2012 rule on full-length videos.
Such a change is supported by commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, who since being sworn in six months ago has made clear his keen interest in hearing-impaired issues.
The commission previously adopted closed-captioning requirements for full-length video programming online, he said last month. I proposed we go further and require captioning for video clips that end up on the Internet. Those who hear with their eyes should not be disadvantaged in their ability to access video information on the Internet.
The change also has support from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, who as a House member sponsored the 2010 Twenty-First Century Communication and Video Act, under which closed-captioning changes are being made.
A Markey spokeswoman said Wednesday that the senator hopes the commission approves the rule change, which would impact an estimated 36 million Americans who are either deaf or have hearing disabilities.
However, businesses and their Washington advocates are concerned about the cost of the proposed changes and how quickly the FCC will require the clips be added to the videos.
In fact, high-ranking members of the National Association of Broadcasters met June 30 with two members of Wheelers legal team to discuss such issues, according to a letter obtained by FoxNews.com.
The association expressed its willingness to work with the FCC on the issues but urged the agency to consider the many steps required to
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The FCC is WAY out of control
It’s purpose was to address the fact that there were a limited number of broadcast frequencies available back in the early days of TV signals being sent over the airways.
The fact that it now claims the right to determine content of online videos is an outrage. Anything that appears on a video image (including captioning) is content.
How is this not tyranny, and how much tyranny are we supposed to swallow?
No expense the taxed cannot afford!
*&^ the FCC. *&^ the government.
Closed captioning... the death of YouTube?
My first thought! YouTube is bad for Democrats, so ...
The steady steamroller of the government bureaucracy.......
Controlling the content of free speech cannot be constitutional
Online video is an important communication media which can expose government overreach and oppressive actions. Radical Socialists don’t like that reality. Obviously.
Youtube has an auto captioning feature that is worse than Babelfish ever was. lol
By the same logic, shouldn’t the FCC outlaw putting silent movies from the 1920s online?
Blind people have rights too, and if they can’t hear any dialog, then they won’t be able to know what’s happening on screen.
Not concerned at all, apparently, about the lack of authority to require such a thing.
Or hire this guy.
If you see me walking down the street, not talking, do I need a digital marquee on my butt to caption what I am thinking?
Well, of course!
Garrett’s still alive. That’d be awesome.
What’s next? Braille captioning in Spanish?
H O W E V E R ...
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponents Argument
I'm not trying to be cruel to people with handicaps. But the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to legislatively address remedies to make life easier for the handicapped. So can we expect citizens and businesses to independently resolve the issue, or is a constitutional amendment to protect the handicapped the remedy?
Also, since the Supreme Court clarified this week that that the states have never amended the Constitution to enumerate the right for women to demand that their employers pay for certain types of contraceptives, why is the Obama administration now expecting video producers to pay the bill to make things easier for the handicapped since the states likewise have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect the handicapped? (hint: buy votes for Democrats)
"The five-member Federal Communications Commission will vote Friday on the proposed rule change, ..."
We'd probably never see this abuse of federal legislative / regulatory power in an election year if parents were making sure that their children were being taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers.
More specifically, and as mentioned in related threads, the Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide them from Constitution "expert" Obama, to clarify that all federal legislative / regulatory powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in non-elected bureaucrats like those running the FCC.
And by allowing non-elected bureaucrats to independently vote on regulations that citizens and businesses must comply with, the federal government is wrongly protecting federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of Sections 1-3 mentioned above imo.
Finally, as a side note concerning the ongoing abuse of constitutionally nonexistent federal government powers by the corrupt federal government, consider that the states would really be a dull, boring place to grow up and live in if, as mentioned above, parents made sure that their children were being taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers. /sarc
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