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Global progress on social media accessibility

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Today marks the one-year anniversary of the release of our sociABILITY: social media for people with a disability resources. The project was the first of its kind and is being used as a keystone in a global push towards recognising people with disability as a large and influential audience on social media.

While social media networks still present access barriers, there are steps organisations and individuals can take to reduce them. For instance, Facebook does not let you provide alternative text for images and so Media Access Australia provides this in the first comment below the image. Similarly, when posting a link to a video we will always mention whether it is captioned or audio described.

Digital media and technology: 

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ACMA posts captioning exemptions submissions

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has posted submissions it has received in response to preliminary caption exemption and target reduction orders granted to 10 television service providers, covering a total of 90 channels. Most of these are subscription TV services which are re-transmitting channels from other sources such as FOXTEL.

These exemption and target reduction orders relate to the new quotas for captioning on free-to-air and subscription television which were included in the Broadcasting Services Act in 2012. The ACMA has the power to grant the orders to television services if providing captions would cause them ‘unjustifiable hardship’. The closing date for applications covering 2013 onward was 27 December 2012, and the ACMA posted its reasons for making preliminary orders earlier this year. Once these were posted, individuals and organisations had 30 days to make submissions in response to them.


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Canada first country to achieve 100% broadcast captioning

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Canada is already a world leader in television captioning with legislation mandating that all TV programs are broadcast with captions. Now, Canada’s media regulator, the Canadian Radio–television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), has announced that all TV commercials, sponsorship messages and promos will have to be captioned from 1 September 2014.

While captioning on all English and French language TV programs has been compulsory in Canada since 2007, the new rules mean that it will become the first country in the world where 100% of broadcast content has to be captioned.

The onus will be on the advertisers to caption their commercials, with the Television Bureau of Canada announcing that, once the rules take effect, all advertising content will be screened to ensure it has closed captions before being cleared for broadcast.


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The top 5 ways the Disability Discrimination Act has boosted access

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The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) turns 20 this year and Australia’s disability communities are taking the opportunity to reflect on how the Act has been used as an instrument for equality. Media Access Australia is no exception; here are the top five ways the DDA has increased access to media content.

Free-to-air TV


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