Oakland, CA - February 2, 2012 - Since the hearing held on December 1, 2011, a major development has emerged, which supports plaintiffs’ equal rights to the on-line video news content at CNN.com.
On January 13, 2012, The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued new regulations under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. The FCC’s new regulations refute CNN’s argument that requiring closed captions of the video news content at CNN.com infringes CNN’s First Amendment rights. In the report accompanying its new regulations, the FCC specifically states that requiring closed captioning on the internet does not implicate the First Amendment.
CNN claims that CNN.com presents 101 million global video streams per month. Yet CNN refuses to provide any closed captioning for deaf and hard of hearing online viewers.
Approximately 1 million Americans are functionally deaf. The number of adults with hearing loss is expected to rise drastically as the baby boomer generation continues to age. With 100,000 deaf residents, California is home to a great number of people who depend on closed captions to understand online news videos.
The suit is brought by the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD) on behalf of its members with hearing loss, and three individual plaintiffs. Plaintiffs are represented by Disability Rights Advocates, a non-profit legal center and Goldstein Borgen Dardarian & Ho (GBDH), a plaintiffs’ civil rights law firm.
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