Subject: ALERT!--1 Email from You Can Keep the FCC from Throwing Accessible Gaming Tech Under the Bus!
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ALERT!--An Email Today'll Keep the Waiver Away!
Tell the FCC to Say NO
to Inaccessible Gaming and Communications Technologies!
For further information, contact:
Mark Richert, Esq.
Director, Public Policy, AFB
(202) 469-6833
[email protected]
Some time ago, lobbyists representing the highly lucretive gaming technology
industry filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
seeking a formal waiver from any requirement stemming from the landmark
Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)
ensuring that key communications features, such as text chat and other forms
of electronic messaging included with their gaming technologies, will be
accessible. While the CVAA does permit the FCC to grant waivers in those
instances where specific technologies may be both designed and marketed for
primary purposes other than the kinds of communication contemplated in the
new law, the FCC is nevertheless completely within its authority to refuse
to grant waivers for such technologies.
There are signs that the FCC may be generally sympathetic to the interest of
people with disabilities in accessible gaming technologies that incorporate
various kinds of communication. However, it has recently come to our
attention that the FCC may be under the impression that people with vision
loss themselves are not particularly interested in the accessibility of
gaming technologies. Advocates should set them straight.
Send a brief email today to Karen Peltz Strauss, Deputy Bureau Chief,
Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, FCC at
[email protected]
In your short, polite but firm message, tell the FCC how you feel about the
ability of people who are blind or visually impaired to fully use the most
popular gaming technologies on the market today. Remind the FCC that the
growing popularity of gaming technologies in K-12 education to foster
learning, use of gaming technologies to increase movement and exercise, and
the overall impact of gaming technologies to bring people together, means
that the accessibility of such technologies must not be thrown under the
bus. Indeed, if the communications features of such technologies are allowed
to continue to be inaccessible, kids, adults and seniors with vision loss
will continue to be shut out of full participation in school and community
and will not be able to enjoy the full benefits afforded by such
technologies.
Astoundingly, the industry representatives arguing for the waiver say that a
waiver of the accessibility requirements of the new law is necessary to
allow industry maximum opportunity to innovate and thereby build on their
alleged track record of success meeting the access needs of people with
disabilities. Tell the FCC what you think of the kind of technological
innovation that routinely leaves people with vision loss behind; we're left
behind while industry brags about their access accomplishments at the same
time they seek legal maneuvers, like the proposed waiver, to shirk their
responsibilities.
The FCC is expected to act very soon on the proposed waiver, so send your
message to the FCC today!
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_______________________________________________ ATI (Adaptive Technology Inc.) A special interest affiliate of the Missouri Council of the Blind http://moblind.org/membership/affiliates/adaptive_technology
