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

#341

Post by ViViDboarder » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

ThatPlayer wrote: post #287

tasuki wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each and every restaurant? I agree we want the world to be fair. I recently went through a difficult situation, during which my partner was unable to visit restaurants, even if they were wheelchair accessible. Was that fair? What about people who can't financially afford going to a restaurant? Is it more fair to exclude someone on the basis of their financial situation rather than based on their physical disability?…

Yes. Because if not each and every restaurant, who gets to pick and choose? If the restaurant owners, none. If the disabled, all. And there isn't really an in-between is there? So all is better than none. Are you arguing we shouldn't have such laws because they don't reach 100% of people? That's letting perfect be the enemy of good. > I recently went through a difficult situation, during which my partner was unable t…

> Yes. Because if not each and every restaurant, who gets to pick and choose? If the restaurant owners, none. If the disabled, all. And there isn't really an in-between is there? So all is better than none.

I think this is why some laws state “reasonable accommodations”. If a ramp is impossible or unaffordable with the restaurants margins, what should be the course of action? Should the restaurant close? If so, that doesn’t actually improve accessibility.

The current law may already use this barometer and the horror story examples may be overblown, but at least this seems like a reasonable way to approach things.

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

#342

Post by nicbou » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 2:42 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #332

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…

How is the law firm profiting? As a New Zealander, I think only the government can enforce similar laws. I am unsure whether a private citizen could get representation here, or whether there could be any civil penalties.

They send an Abmahnung, which is similar to a cease and desist, but can include costs.

You can refuse the cost and prepare for a possibly expensive battle, or pay the costs and call it a day.

Usually, you are guilty of the minor crime you're accused of, so they have a case.

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

#343

Post by JCharante » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 2:55 AM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #251

themitigating wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're handicapped you don't expect to be able to go hiking. However you do expect to be able to go to restaurants

If the restaurant merely rents, how responsible is it for the landlord's property being less than accessible? If the restaurant is in a Historic District, and the board/commission/whatever in charge of that is generally opposed to pro-accessibility changes - who (other than the lawyers) benefits when the restaurant ends up as a de-facto abandoned building? If my "handicap" is a severe peanut allergy, should I be able…

I kinda agree. If the restaurant rents then the landlord renting out their space as restaurant space should be liable

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

#344

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:16 AM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #337

Dylan16807 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$30k a year is a notable amount of money, sure. But in terms of paying for non-english subtitling? A single hour of video could eat 1-2% of that! I can easily see a situation where it's an enormous and disproportionate burden. Imagine a twitch streamer that does 20 hours a week and makes $4000 a month. If they had to pay $5 a minute for a subtitling service, which is lower than what I'm seeing for many languages, the…

The guy lives in Israel, and is making classes in a language he speaks, he's not going to get hoodwinked into paying $3000 an hour captions. Just because there are offers for $3000 an hour subtitles to businesses with more money than sense doesn't mean he couldn't post this job on one of hundreds of translation markets that would this at thousandths of the cost you quoted. - And twitch streamer does not have to submi…

> The guy lives in Israel, and is making classes in a language he speaks, he's not going to get hoodwinked into paying $3000 an hour captions.

What do you think is a reasonable price? Why is every company I find wrong?

It's not like you can hire an assistant that can work on it for many hours for a quarter of $30k/year.

And yeah I'm assuming he won't do it himself, which I think is reasonable. Service prices are fair here.

> thousandths of the cost you quoted.

Thousandths? So they can transcribe an hour of audio by hand for under a dollar? Be reasonable.

Though I think you did the math wrong, I was citing $300, and that's for a good few hours of labor to get everything written down, cleaned up, and synced.

If there's a way to do it with just a computer then ignore everything I said, but I thought the point here was that tech doesn't work well enough on hebrew.

> It's not a long article, but apparently you couldn't be bothered to even skim the one section explaining the exemptions.

I didn't click the link with exemptions because I was just giving an example of video content. Sorry? It doesn't invalidate my entire point. And what if those twitch streams were educational?

> I understand this is Hacker News where I am sure you'd gladly spend days coming up with every contrarian corner case to basic affordances for the disabled in existence than accept, maybe just maybe, you were wrong based off your initial assessment of a situation.

I admit that just fine. But if you want to prove the "maybe" you need to give me a real citation on cost that shows it's affordable.

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

#345

Post by Arainach » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:18 AM UTC

ViViDboarder wrote: post #341

ThatPlayer wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Because if not each and every restaurant, who gets to pick and choose? If the restaurant owners, none. If the disabled, all. And there isn't really an in-between is there? So all is better than none. Are you arguing we shouldn't have such laws because they don't reach 100% of people? That's letting perfect be the enemy of good. > I recently went through a difficult situation, during which my partner was unable t…

> Yes. Because if not each and every restaurant, who gets to pick and choose? If the restaurant owners, none. If the disabled, all. And there isn't really an in-between is there? So all is better than none. I think this is why some laws state “reasonable accommodations”. If a ramp is impossible or unaffordable with the restaurants margins, what should be the course of action? Should the restaurant close? If so, that…

Businesses don't have an inherent right to exist. If your business can't be profitable while paying your workers a liveable wage, maintaining safety for employees and customers, etc. then your business should fail.

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

#346

Post by yucky » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #339

yucky wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The issue here under the law is whether disabled people can access his website or not. A website is a work of art, and nobody has a right to someone else's art. Disabled or not.

On what basis do you say that? You seem to be in conflict with Israeli law on this one, and I think on a moral level that is a bit shaky. If your art could be appreciated by disabled people, it seems a bit questionable to assert that there is a 'right' to exclude them. I want to be clear - I think all this regulatory interference is doing more harm than good. But I don't see why this case is different because it is w…

A blind person can't see a painting, therefore we shouldn't paint. A deaf person can't hear music, therefore we shouldn't make music.

This argument is absurd. Nobody has a right to prevent someone form expressing themselves just because they can't enjoy it.

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

#347

Post by tssva » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:37 AM UTC

JCharante wrote: post #343

bell-cot wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the restaurant merely rents, how responsible is it for the landlord's property being less than accessible? If the restaurant is in a Historic District, and the board/commission/whatever in charge of that is generally opposed to pro-accessibility changes - who (other than the lawyers) benefits when the restaurant ends up as a de-facto abandoned building? If my "handicap" is a severe peanut allergy, should I be able…

I kinda agree. If the restaurant rents then the landlord renting out their space as restaurant space should be liable

The restaurant owners chose to rent a property with knowledge that they were going to operate a restaurant on the property, and they also knew or should have known the accessibility requirements for restaurants. Why shouldn't they be liable.

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

#348

Post by tablespoon » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:45 AM UTC

infamia wrote: post #192

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

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…

> 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.

No it isn't. It's just evidence that the world isn't perfect. Those "scummy" lawyers are performing an important function, and if not for them things probably wouldn't be anywhere near as accessible for disabled people as they are now.

It's kind of ironic that the libertarian-types who are often the loudest ones condemning stuff like this are also the first to defend people similarly motivated by greed as performing important functions, such as price gougers and the like.

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

#349

Post by josephcsible » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:50 AM UTC

rat87 wrote: post #214

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…

And when those mcchains go out of business the next business will have a ramp

I think you have the effects of this backwards. It's predominantly the mom-and-pop restaurants that go out of business, and the "mcchains" that install the ramps.

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

#350

Post by tluyben2 » Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 3:54 AM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #168

crummy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe where you are? Here in my town it is quite normal to be driving around looking for a space while the 8 disabled spots at the entrance are never (not even 1) occupied. The police enforces so if you park there you immediately have a fine. Aka literally what the GP says.