Government Regs Necessary for Captioning on the Web
The controversy over captioning and accessibility for online videos has been an issue for quite some time. No one has quite had the courage to say what needed to be said, though, until now. Introducing Joe Clark, a Toronto-based journalist and author, who makes some amazing points about the difficulties in proper captioning to online videos. No longer is it as simple as packaging a uniform text script into a television signal. Instead, the closed captioning must be tied to each separate video format, requiring separate files that will never stay perfectly bound together. There is much, much more within his article, so to briefly sum up his final point:
Legislators have to get involved (and indeed should) in order to introduce proper forms of captioning for folks with any form of disability. Up to this point, all attempts by YouTube, AOL, Yahoo and more have resulted in weak implementation better suited to supporting business goals, rather than improving accessibility to online videos. In addition to this, he notes that all roads of captioning research point towards one mystery institution that works in secrecy. Why should a group working privately be setting standards? To corner the market and make money, that’s why.
Check out the article, it’s very informative.
