Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lifemichael.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 450 posts

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

#191

Post by synthpop »

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.

Then if it's free, can it really be considered a business in the eyes of the state? Why aren't free auto-generated captions from YouTube sufficient for appeasing the law if no money is being made by the creator from the work? Is it being targeted despite being free because YouTube is still generating ad revenue? Which would mean that it should be YouTube's responsibility for content on its platform to meet the new accessibility standard? Again, I don't know how legal affairs like this work over there and he didn't elaborate, so readers are basically forced to ask questions like this in order to actually understand or sympathize with what's happening here.

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

#192

Post by infamia »

anaisbetts wrote: post #63
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...

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

It is objectively bad, and scummy lawyers are able to abuse the system in part because in the U.S., exactly what is accessible isn't actually written in the law. What's accessible is magically reinterpreted every eight years or so and are jotted down in a vague, sometimes shoddily written document. Such circumstances enables lawyers to take advantage of an ever-changing, poorly defined spec. I'm all for accessibility and work hard to make it happen at my job, but the system in the U.S. objectively awful. Congress should pass a law every time they want to update what is accessible, instead of making it up as they go along and encouraging this sort of litigation fishing for fun and profit.

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

#193

Post by Spivak »

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…

I think the issue is that “the disabled don’t need access to everything” ends up with the abled deciding what the disabled deserve to access. How shitty a life having to utter something like, “sorry no, I haven’t tried the new ramen shop, the state legislature decided that restaurants weren’t essential enough to require wheelchair access and the front door is up some stairs.”

It in no way excuses the frankly bullshit lawsuits the parent is referencing but in general I think everything should be accessible. Like in all things there needs to be an element of good faith. There’s a world of difference between painted lines being slightly faded and “I genuinely can’t get into your business.”

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

#194

Post by punyearthling »

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…

That's pretty specific - maybe a California thing - but I'd heard as an engineer, you just had to show an attempt was made at making your site accessible. Targeting specific ADA violations is odd to me.

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

#195

Post by themitigating »

vkou wrote: post #169
BitwiseFool wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hello Texas abortion law

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

#197

Post by CapsAdmin »

inetknght wrote: post #87
josephcsible wrote: post #14

This is a problem with accessibility laws in general, not with Israel in particular. Remember when UC Berkeley was a victim of the same kind of attack? https://reason.com/2017/03/07/berkeley-deletes-200000-free-o...

> Berkeley had two choices: spend a fortune adding closed captioning to the videos, or remove them from public view. Cost-conscious administrators chose the latter option. There's no kind of "attack" here. It's UC Berkley refusing to spend money to add subtitles.

If your government asks you to delete your post or pay up a million dollars, is it your fault for choosing to delete the post?

There is maybe something here if the law was active before they made all the videos, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

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

#198

Post by ceejayoz »

bombcar wrote: post #148
ceejayoz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The article says "chase innocent businesses" and that their new venture has courses limited to 500 people, which seems to indicate similar exemptions in their version.

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

#199

Post by ahtihn »

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...

> Unfortunately every time you create a new law with a private right of action, lawyers will monetize it at industrial scale.

Why "unfortunately"? It seems to me this is the intended outcome. It's how these laws actually get enforced.

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

#200

Post by themitigating »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #61
twblalock wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, so the arbitrators of that system can profit instead? And so the people who appoint them can profit from having such a lucrative power?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The process can still be something that involves a government body, but one where the complainant cannot sue for damages so long as good-faith efforts to remediate the problem are being made. And hopefully one where a punitive fine/fee is not assessed. I don't think anyone who puts a video online should be punished if they didn't know they had to put closed captions on it.

Who pays for that government body?

There's a reason you can't claim ignorance of the law, because it would be extremely difficult to prove a person was aware something was illegal

Post reply on HN