A new bill in Congress, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009, seeks to make it mandatory to provide closed captioned online and make Internet more accessible to the deaf and others who rely on captioning. The Act can be read here: COAT Web site.Within this article are links to contacting representative Ed Markey and Senators to support the bill. The link for signing the petition to support the bill is here: Petition to Support the Bill. Additionally, there is a group on Facebook named Caption Action 2: Internet Captioning that seeks to gather members to show and send support of this Act to our Representatives and Senators. The Act was introduced on June 26, 2009 and the word needs to go out that it is available and needs to be supported.

I’m for this because I’ve been watching shows online since they began appearing on the Internet. I rarely watch TV because I’m always on the computer, plus it’s easier to watch shows in sequel online because places like Hulu organize them into episodes. Although iTunes, Hulu and Google have been working to provide captioned videos on their web sites, it’s still inadequate because it’s purely voluntary. There is no requirement legally binding companies to provide their videos with captioning included, online. Show your support today and have your voice counted!

Why have captioning? Nowadays, televisions are mandated by the Telecommunications Act in 1996 to have closed captioning available. This needs to also be passed into shows and movies on the Internet. Please support the 21st Century Communications and Video accessibility Act of 2009.