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Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

lifemichael.com

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Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#141

Post by crummy »

josephcsible wrote: post #68
ceejayoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you shouldn't be forced to choose between spending way more money on it or taking it away from everyone... The unfortunate end result of that is certain segments of the population treated as second-class citizens.

If the way to make people not be "second-class citizens" is just by taking away and destroying other people's things, rather than by making more things available to them, then I don't think it's something we should do.

Isn't that how handicap parking spaces work? Destroying availability of parking spaces for abled people? What's your take on that that?

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#142

Post by coryrc »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #118
josephcsible wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the way to make people not be "second-class citizens" is just by taking away and destroying other people's things, rather than by making more things available to them, then I don't think it's something we should do.

You're arguing for a dichotomy that doesn't exist. I've heard excuses my entire life why accessibility laws are impossible and costly to apply. Meanwhile most infractions I see are egregious, easy to fix, and not punished. With Covid we changed our entire lifestyle, we modified facilities with plastic screens, markers on the floors, instituted work from home, all of this practically overnight. Meanwhile all over the…

> You're arguing for a dichotomy that doesn't exist.

It literally exists: https://reason.com/2017/03/07/berkeley-deletes-200000-free-o...

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#143

Post by cwkoss »

xupybd wrote: post #20
synthpop wrote: post #17

Not much of a description of the new accessibility requirements, so I don't think people can have much insight about what exactly broke down here. I'm guessing if a website has more than 500 viewers/visitors a month, it's required that the videos must be captioned? Couldn't this guy just hire a professional captioning service or offer transcripts to users that may need it? This all seems a bit dramatic from the guy,…

That sounds expensive for something that he is giving away free.

I feel like accessibility laws should be targeting businesses. If there isn't a carve out for personally hosted free content, that's a horrible oversight.

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#144

Post by slaymaker1907 »

xupybd wrote: post #20
synthpop wrote: post #17

Not much of a description of the new accessibility requirements, so I don't think people can have much insight about what exactly broke down here. I'm guessing if a website has more than 500 viewers/visitors a month, it's required that the videos must be captioned? Couldn't this guy just hire a professional captioning service or offer transcripts to users that may need it? This all seems a bit dramatic from the guy,…

That sounds expensive for something that he is giving away free.

I think this is the big issue. Subtitling video is much more difficult than just recording it and while maybe reasonable for well funded groups, it isn't for your average one person shop.

In these cases, it seems like it would be much more reasonable to allow scripts/transcripts in place of subtitles. Putting together a written version is something that many educators do already.

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#145

Post by googlryas »

carapace wrote: post #106
danny_taco wrote: post #45

People with disabilities often struggle to find content they can consume because it's not a11y friendly. Unfortunately in this case lawyers are capitalizing on this law that was made to help people with disabilities to go after websites that are not a11y friendly. Maybe before shutting down you should consider making your content a11y friendly by adding captions to your videos. It is extra work but consider you may b…

This. I cannot believe the amount of strident anti-accessibility sentiment in this thread, it has to be coming mostly from the young and able-bodied? This has already been discussed and the question is settled, to the point of being actual law: civilized societies make allowances for people with disabilities. We are not some "Lord of the Flies" barbarians to say "f*ck the deaf" are we? It's 2022, captioning is a solv…

Can you please upload an audio clip of your comment, or edit your comment to be more screen reader friendly?

My screen reader gets tripped up with whatever "f*ck" is supposed to mean, it sounds like a zipper.

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#146

Post by bombcar »

shmerl wrote: post #116

Wait, it's illegal to publish sites that offer free information if they don't comply with some accessibility rules?

Usually this comes into play with captioning (it's why YouTube in the US asks if the video uploaded was ever broadcast on TV), but yes, often "it's free" is not an excuse to avoid accessibility laws.

Many laws recognize this, and have exceptions built in. For example, the ADA itself:

>Exemptions and exclusions. This part does not apply to any private club (except to the extent that the facilities of the private club are made available to customers or patrons of a place of public accommodation), or to any religious entity or public entity.

(Amusingly enough it doesn't apply to airplanes or trains, as those are regulated elsewhere)

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#147

Post by bombcar »

ars wrote: post #124
fragmede wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a wonderful idea! I've sent him a tweet offering to help and get access to the videos in order to transcribe them.

Do you speak Hebrew?

Now I'm suddenly imagining hours of Hebrew video subtitled by bad lip syncing.

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#148

Post by bombcar »

ceejayoz wrote: post #126
bombcar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can be solved by providing assistance directly to those segments in some cases. For example, we require wheelchair ramps at commercial buildings and apartments of a certain size and even motels must have "wheelchair accessible" units, even if some are only accessible by stairs. But we don't require every single house to have a wheelchair lift or ramp, but we can help pay for those to be installed on the houses t…

> Similarly, instead of requiring every website to comply with X, Y, or Zed, require it of the "commercial players" and provide assistance services to those who cannot access the rest of the web. That's already the case. The ADA doesn't apply to your house or personal non-commercial websites.

The ADA is not the law of the land in Israel unless something changed drastically recently.

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#149

Post by uranium »

knaekhoved wrote: post #88
anaisbetts wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might say that this is bad (and on its face, it certainly does feel that way), but OTOH, it rapidly resulted in an enormous quality-of-life change for disabled people, it is the reason that the US is vastly more accessible than many other places

Quoted post unavailable.

That's a bit of a stretch.

The point of the ADA and similar laws is to improve access for people with disabilities.

Does it increase costs? Yeah, it does. Are the costs "vast"? Generally not; it depends a lot on the situation.

Does it make life worse for people without disabilities? That's mixed. Those who bear the compliance costs get some disadvantages. However, lots of people who aren't strictly speaking disabled benefit from the accessibility and usability improvements of captioning, wheelchair ramps, improved light switches, grab rails, etc. Making your business/website/rental-apartment more accessible, even where it's not required, may end up making you more money as your clientele grows and pay for itself. And of course we all end up with disabilities if we live long enough; let's hope we all last to the point that we appreciate the ramps, larger text, captions, etc.

Re: Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites

#150

Post by no_butterscotch »

pnw wrote: post #33

This already happens in the US with ADA laws, and it will happen with California's new privacy and wage transparency laws. Unfortunately every time you create a new law with a private right of action, lawyers will monetize it at industrial scale. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/magazine/americans-with-d...

There was a disabled guy in the Bay Area going around suing all sorts of restaurants and other places if they didn't have ramps.

Small hole in the wall restaurants couldn't afford renovations and had to just close, resulting in more Mc-chain restaurants moving in that can afford to play ball.

Disabled people need access, but I (perhaps controversially) don't think they need access to 100% of the things. I'm reminded of that article from a few years ago "hiking has an able-ist problem" because hiking trails weren't wheelchair accessible. We can't fix all the things for people in wheelchairs (paved trails up half-dome?) or people who are blind (should the trails have megaphones every 10 feet saying "watch your step here because there's rocks"?).

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