Why Blind Americans are Worried about Trump’s Tech Policy

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The Federal Communications Commission’s self-imposed hiatus means that a number of high-profile regulations are unlikely to be acted upon until President-elect Trump takes office, if ever. One of those issues is video description – when a narrator explains, for the benefit of the blind or visually impaired, what’s happening onscreen during a TV show or movie, squeezing his or her voice-over into the gaps between dialogue.

The problem is that not many shows have video description. Currently, FCC regulations require the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) to provide just four hours of the service per week, for primetime or children’s programming. Five cable channels (USA, TNT, TBS, History, and Disney) are subject to the same requirement. A deleted agenda item from a November FCC meeting would have expanded the FCC’s requirement by more than half, up to nearly seven hours per week, and applied it to the top ten non-broadcast channels, including premium ones such as HBO and AMC. Today, the fear in the blind community is that a temporary delay might become a permanent halt.


Why Blind Americans are Worried about Trump’s Tech Policy