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Deaf Advocacy Groups To Verizon: Don't Kill Net Neutrality On Our Behalf
Dega704 sends this quote from Ars:
No company has lobbied more fiercely against network neutrality than Verizon, which filed the lawsuit that overturned the FCC's rules prohibiting ISPs from blocking and discriminating against Web content. But the absence of net neutrality rules isn't just good for Verizon—it's also good for the blind, deaf, and disabled, Verizon claims. That's what Verizon lobbyists said in talks with congressional staffers, according to a Mother Jones report last month. "Three Hill sources tell Mother Jones that Verizon lobbyists have cited the needs of blind, deaf, and disabled people to try to convince congressional staffers and their bosses to get on board with the fast lane idea," the report said. With "fast lanes," Web services—including those designed for the blind, deaf, and disabled—could be prioritized in exchange for payment. Now, advocacy groups for deaf people have filed comments with the FCC saying they don't agree with Verizon's position."
My hearing is bad enough that I need to use hearing aids, although I can get along to some extent without them. When I watch TV, I always have the Closed Captioning turned on and have, in fact abandoned shows that stopped providing it. Yes, providing it at need uses up a little more bandwidth, but very, very little. We don't need to throw out Net Neutrality to get closed captioning, especially when you consider the fact that most people won't ever need it.
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Exploiting the technical ignorance of elderly congressmen by lying about the technical needs of deaf folks.
Its pretty scummy tactic. Unfortunately for Verison disabilities activists can be INCREDIBLY noisy when they are shat upon, so I doubt our deaf friends are going to tolerate this guff at all.
Go deaf dudes!
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
And I have never needed, used, or even been aware of any service provided to deaf people by Verizon. I honestly have no clue what they're talking about, and it's one of the lamest, skeeziest attempts to wheedle money I've seen in a while. Fuck you, Verizon.
Not sure, but I'm fairly certain that making deaf/blind/etc pay more for specific fast lanes to ensure content that is easier for them to use MIGHT be against the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). I'm not sure Verizon was thinking this one through. The ADA has some serious teeth.