Thanks to the Israeli accessibility law, I have to delete my websites • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by labrador » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:07 PM UTC

no_butterscotch wrote: post #150

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…

My favorite sandwich shop in Menlo Park closed because of these lawsuits

Two of the lawsuits against Kwan and the cafe were filed by serial ADA litigants

https://padailypost.com/2019/05/01/cafe-closes-after-third-a...

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

#182

Post by jibe » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

angst_ridden wrote: post #135

tehwebguy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies doing that Doing which, making services unavailable to disabled people or suing those that do? I mean if my health insurer, for example, couldn't accommodate a disability of mine, especially something as common as low vision or hearing, I'd certainly feel like getting revenge but doesn't everyone feel that way about every health insurer every year or two? If you meant the other way around, like if someone…

I believe in making things accessible, and strive to do that on all my projects. I object to abuse of the ADA. Businesses / organizations should be given an opportunity to remediate their web sites before an automated script files an erroneous lawsuit.

It should be an easy legal fix - you have to give notice and ~120 day window to fix before you are allowed to file a lawsuit. Also, not sure private parties should be plaintiffs here.

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

#183

Post by themitigating » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

baggy_trough wrote: post #175

no_butterscotch wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The disabled litigant is of course bottom feeding scum, but the real fault is with the law itself.

No, the fault is the person who abuses it. That's a choice. The law wasn't created with abuse in mind and while you could claim it should have been written better That's just a mistake.

Only one party here is purposeful in their actions

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

#184

Post by johndough » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #153

anigbrowl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whisper is free and classroom instruction should be a breeze and require little correction, as there likely isn't much background noise or music.

And it only works with English. As discussed elsewhere in the thread, the majority of the videos are in Hebrew. Even for much less exotic languages such as French automatic speech recognition systems don't work or are extremely bad.

> And it only works with English.

Depending on how you define "work", Whisper also works with Hebrew. Not sure if the word error rate is acceptable though https://github.com/openai/whisper/#available-models-and-lang...

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

#185

Post by miki123211 » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #139

tehwebguy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies doing that Doing which, making services unavailable to disabled people or suing those that do? I mean if my health insurer, for example, couldn't accommodate a disability of mine, especially something as common as low vision or hearing, I'd certainly feel like getting revenge but doesn't everyone feel that way about every health insurer every year or two? If you meant the other way around, like if someone…

> Doing which, making services unavailable to disabled people or suing those that do? You think these people are champions of the disabled? If a disabled person wanted to see the video, and could not, and asked them for help, that would be one thing. This ain't that. They're fucking vultures, they are in this to make money off of as many people as possible, regardless of the harm they cause. This is no more sane than…

If a disabled person asks for anything, they usually get a generic "we care about your feedback, this is on our radar" response and nothing actually happens.

I'm speaking from experience here, I've done quite a few accessibility-related support requests, and getting a human to answer is very often a struggle.

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

#186

Post by michaelmrose » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #119

armchairhacker wrote: post #31

you should add subtitles to your videos. Either just auto-generate them with a service (can even use YouTube as someone mentioned), ask for the community to add subtitles, or hire transcribers if you’re willing to pay Can re-show the videos one at a time when subtitles are added rather than immediately doing it to the full batch. You could even just move the site to a Youtube channel, as youtube provides subtitles. B…

Autogeneration for non-English languages often is relatively bad or simply doesn't exist at all. Imagine having to record your post in American sign language before being allowed to post it on Hacker News. At some point it becomes silly.

On that topic I've always wondered about official presentations where the program splits the screen between the actual speaker and a person signing.

Seems like that would only be useful for deaf people actually at the event whereas deaf people could be better served by captions.

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

#187

Post by tehwebguy » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #139

tehwebguy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies doing that Doing which, making services unavailable to disabled people or suing those that do? I mean if my health insurer, for example, couldn't accommodate a disability of mine, especially something as common as low vision or hearing, I'd certainly feel like getting revenge but doesn't everyone feel that way about every health insurer every year or two? If you meant the other way around, like if someone…

> Doing which, making services unavailable to disabled people or suing those that do? You think these people are champions of the disabled? If a disabled person wanted to see the video, and could not, and asked them for help, that would be one thing. This ain't that. They're fucking vultures, they are in this to make money off of as many people as possible, regardless of the harm they cause. This is no more sane than…

I don't know anything about the unnamed firm mentioned up the thread other than what the OP said but it doesn't sound like they are actually following the law: I doubt that simply "finding" a website with a video that lacks captions is enough for a viable suit.

From Googling, it appears that suits without actual damages are getting thrown out[0], so I'd guess the attorneys running that show are doing something unlawful but not illegal by filing these suits, or maybe something not even unlawful by simply making legal demands without filing.

Probably one of the biggest causes for all of this pain is that so many "white collar" violations of public trust are either a) not actually illegal or b) not handled by any law enforcement.

The Prenda Law debacle comes to mind though -- these guys spent years terrorizing people with copyright law before anything really came of it but, incredibly, they actually ended up convicted on fairly serious charges. It's super wild to read about, I wonder if they had dialed it back a tiny bit they would have stayed under the radar completely.

[0] This doesn't help the defendants in question with their own attorney's fees but does send a message about viability of these garbage suits to the plaintiffs and every other firm looking into it.

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

#188

Post by themitigating » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

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.

The business would still have to make the change. That costs money

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

#189

Post by extantproject » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:12 PM UTC

drc500free wrote: post #165

Forgeties79 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 priv…

> If people followed the law, they wouldn't get sued.

non sequitur

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

#190

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #154

bombcar wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a vast difference between "businesses should have wheelchair ramps and accessible bathrooms" and "everything possible must be done for the disabled and borne by the people providing it". The US ADA has struck a pretty decent balance, few people are actively against wheelchair ramps, and elevators do add to the cost of a building but most buildings of that size are moderately expensive anyway. But imagine if i…

> There's a vast difference between "businesses should have wheelchair ramps and accessible bathrooms" and "everything possible must be done for the disabled and borne by the people providing it". That's a really patronizing comment. If we're going there, I'd like someone to point out the law that says that "everything possible must be done for the disabled and borne by the people providing it". - Did you read the ar…

Consider that for certain kinds of video (one or two people, minimal editing, not in english), subtitles could cost ten times as much as the video itself.