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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

#161

Post by Test0129 »

Not surprised. I remember pushing back pretty aggressively against some people trying to get this stuff codified into law here. Ostensibly it stands to benefit people by increasing accessibility. However, it hamstrings the average Joe because as it turns out the ADA is a labyrinth of gotchas and compliance is often expensive. In the case of software, a simple app doable by one person could easily take 10x as long if you are required by law to do this.

The only benefit to our industry is for people not trying to make money you can release things anonymously and avoid the pain. Unfortunately for everyone else once this happens here it's curtains for small business.

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

#162

Post by orangepurple »

galangalalgol wrote: post #132
littlestymaar wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is essentially a legal protection money racket. People running a racket never leave you with nothing left to lose. Most obviously because they can't come back for more. But also because people with nothing left to lose will burn down al Capone's house and not care that they are about to be killed in some horrible way. These legal rackets know if they hit you for something you can afford to pay and keep your busi…

Cameras don't work if the neighborhood transformer is down for unscheduled reconfiguration

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

#163

Post by rekabis »

Become an Estonian eCitizen, launch an Estonian company with you as a shareholder, use a dot-com with appropriately themed subdomains for each portal, host internationally, avoid using anything local to Israel, and even if you have Hebrew content you can tell them to go pound sand.

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

#165

Post by drc500free »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #77
angst_ridden wrote: post #65

There's a firm in Southern California that's suing restaurants / small theaters / community organizations / etc after bulk-scanning web sites for embedded video that lack links to caption files. It's all ADA abuse, lawsuits in the $5k-$7k range. A huge percentage of those sued don't have the means to fight back, and settle. The company that's suing people had some incompetent coder write their scanner, so it only par…

I genuinely do not understand how they can sleep at night. Thanks for pushing back.

It's no different from not having curb cuts on your sidewalk. Culturally tech companies have gotten away with selling non-compliant products and websites, and feel like it's unacceptable to be required to follow regulations because everyone has level-set their expectations around not doing that.

A competent regulatory scheme would have had the government enforcing this from the beginning, instead of depending on private action that seldom happens, but here we are. Uber ignores taxi regulations, AirBnB ignores zoning regulations, and everyone ignores accessibility regulations.

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

#166

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

coryrc wrote: post #142
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Not a dichotomy, the third option of making your website accessible is right there within their reach. Them putting their hands up and saying "guess we'll do nothing" is not evidence that they couldn't have.

I could have done that with two interns over a summer in 2017, I've done much larger labeling projects with fewer resources. Had they even thought about accessibility before being called on it, they could even have done it over time as they were recording the videos, surely they put resources into that.

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

#167

Post by charcircuit »

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…

If the deaf want to listen to the content I make they can use their own speech to text system. If it's a solved problem like you said there should be no issue with that. Deaf people can gain access to content without having to force everyone else to cater to them.

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

#168

Post by _gabe_ »

crummy wrote: post #141
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.

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

There's plenty of non handicapped parking. Handicapped spots don't take parking away from the rest of the community.

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

#169

Post by vkou »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #34
twblalock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s boneheaded stuff like this that turned me against most accessibility laws in general. They sound like a good idea, but the implementations tend to make the perfect the enemy of the good and raise the barrier to entry too high for anyone who doesn’t have their own legal team.

There needs to be a system where accessibility issues can be raised and addressed without allowing attorneys to profiteer from the system.

Yes, that system would be called government-driven enforcement. It shouldn't be my job, as a private citizen, to launch a lawsuit to ensure that vendors comply with relevant laws.

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

#170

Post by Test0129 »

weatherlight wrote: post #160
knaekhoved wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about I should be able to do whatever I want with my content without some slimy lawyer or smarmy internet commenter giving me a hard time?

If they knew what the law existed prior to making the business.... Then it sounds like the business owner is at fault here. (Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, either way!) They either comply with the ordinance or fight it in court if they think it goes against the letter of the law. If they don't like the law, petition their representatives to change the law. It's just grifting at this point.

Or perhaps the business couldn't afford transcription/translation. The GP seems to suggest it's "trivial" to add subtitles. Great! What happens when those subtitles are terrible quality? The goal post will get moved further and further by those in charge until you need professional grade transcription. If you're a small enough business you probably don't have the XX,XXX in legal capital to fight a firm that can throw XXX,XXX in to prove their point.

The problem isn't how easy it is, nor how we should do this. It's that someone has a gun to every small business' head telling them to spend money/time/resources on something they may not have the ability to do immediately. No one should be able to tell me how to run my company, or my life. It's up to me to decide to be compliant to accessibility and if I don't it may cost me customers. It's not like handicap ramps that save people's lives in fires. This is a transcription. Ostensibly not NEARLY as important as other ADA regulations. But because of it's ambiguity and relative ease to determine who and who isn't following using data miners it's a cash cow for legal vultures.

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