Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses • Hacker News Board

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#221

Post by ramblerman » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 7:09 AM UTC

aldordeah wrote: post #140

morgante wrote: post #78

This is beyond ridiculous and will have a serious chilling effect on the growth of online learning content. That you should be obligated to spend additional money on captioning your free videos is incredibly unfair and also unjustifiable. Unfortunately, in many cases it will make the costs unsustainable so we'll see videos taken down entirely—thus, the deaf are selfishly insisting that if they can't have something no…

Please explain to me how it is fair that, by studying a free online uncaptioned lecture, someone gets even more of an advantage over me just because they weren't born deaf.

Its not fair. By the definition that you were born deaf the situation is already unfair. Its also unfair that people are born with such good looks they can breeze through life.

But if the net effect is that good free content will just become unavailable for everyone to achieve a sense of fairness, Then that seems petty and I'm not on board.

I hope they lose this case spectacularly as it would set a terrible precedent.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#222

Post by handojin » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 7:09 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #208

jasonlotito wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please explain how it's fair that organizations who are releasing educational materials for free should be forced to pay extra money (which they possibly can't afford to spare) so that their content is slightly more accessible to a vanishingly small portion of the population. Because they agreed to follow said laws: the ADA. They have options if they choose not to follow the laws. > Please explain how it's fair tha…

>Because they agreed to follow said laws: the ADA. Something being the law doesn't mean that it's fair. I shouldn't have to explain that. Also, it hasn't been established that these universities are actually breaking the ADA. >They have options if they choose not to follow the laws. What do you mean by this? >They do not want everyone to lose access. Well, that's the likely outcome of suing a university trying to off…

EDIT: for clarity, removing rhetoricals

Strictly speaking it's not ad hominem. A careful reader will see that nowhere has (s)he called you a "spoiled petulant, self entitled child". You're merely being asked to explain your understanding of the meaning of a highly pejorative term which you introduced into the discourse.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#223

Post by handojin » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 7:29 AM UTC

nimblegorilla wrote: post #2

I prefer transcripts over videos. It often takes less than 10 minutes to read the transcript of a 60 minute presentation. And it is a lot easier to go back and review sections which were confusing.

A thousand times yes. With a suitably rocking implementation (as outlined by other posters up/down of me) this would be a net benefit to everyone not just the deaf.

The number of people on this thread who think this is a zero sum game is just massively depressing.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#224

Post by vacri » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:05 AM UTC

aneeshm wrote: post #128

Sanddancer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means you'll have just as much access to the knowledge as deaf people. Accessibility should never be an add-on.

Deaf people's problems are not my problems (except insofar as I choose to act on empathy I may feel), and making something accessible is a choice, and not something deaf people have any right to, nor I any obligation to provide. They are entitled to nothing (from me) I do not freely choose to give. They may have achieved sufficient political power to force others to do what they want, whether or not the other person…

Equally, you have no more right to Harvard's free videos than a deaf person, and Harvard has no right to government funding. Turtles all the way down, with that argument.

> To destroy other people's access to a good because you have the power to, in order to coerce them into acting so that you receive such a good yourself, is wrong.

Sorry, Ms Parks, but you can't sit in that seat...

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#225

Post by jes » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:05 AM UTC

balls187 wrote: post #118

fennecfoxen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the purposes of armchair moralizing, who cares about the law as written? Pretend we're making the law, instead of deferring to the law as written. Should we in fact tell them "it is illegal for you to put out this material to benefit much of humanity, without also expending additional effort to benefit the deaf part of humanity?"

>Should we in fact tell them "it is illegal for you to put out this material to benefit much of humanity, without also expending additional effort to benefit the deaf part of humanity?" Yes. To prevent this exact line of thinking, laws exist. Not just to protect the majority, but to protect EVERYONE as equals, under the rule of law.

I think your comment is thoughtful and well-intentioned, but I find myself wondering about the seemingly egalitarian nature of it.

May I ask if are you saying that if I wanted to feed poor people, you would want to see me thwarted, unless I could feed every poor person?

In other words, if an organization only has the resources to do a little bit of good in the world, unless they can treat everyone as equals, they shouldn't be allowed to act at all?

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#226

Post by datashovel » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:50 AM UTC

I think the sad thing here is not that deaf people are suing for access to educational materials. I think it's sad that they are ignored to the point that they feel their only option is to sue in order to have their voices heard.

People don't just wake up one morning and say "Hey, I have an idea. Let's go sue M.I.T. and Harvard". There is likely alot of stuff that happens leading up to that moment.

If you think that this is just a random thing where the "big bully deaf people are trying to push poor little M.I.T. and Harvard around" I legitimately feel sorry for you. Your sheltered view of the world is so out of touch with reality it isn't funny.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#227

Post by vacri » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:51 AM UTC

sadfaceunread wrote: post #94

Penn&Teller covered the ADA in this episode of their TV Series Bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLfo979TDaY . The sue first model of accessibility is sickening especially in this case.

I love watching P&T's Bullshit, passing the time counting logical fallacies. For example, the good old No True Scotsman in 'you don't have problems unless you're (registered as) legally blind'. Their ringers in that episode each had some point were they talk about true disabled people.

Also nice was the "zomg, an empty parking space, that's due to a gun put to the business owner's head!"... in a place where there are plenty of other empty parking spaces in shot. Curiously, this point is put forward by a prolific author with a disability, who they present as a typical example of people with disabilities. My favourite part was towards the end, talking about workforce participation: "The ADA has had no effect and hasn't helped increase workforce participation, which has stayed around 30%. That means it's done a lot of harm". What?

Rather curiously, Penn keeps talking about how you can't legislate compassion, and even make a point of it explicitly - "If this wasn't legislated, people would be more compassionate" - referencing the parking spaces in particular. But hey, nothing is stopping business owners from being more compassionate than is legally required. It's almost like the arguments they're making are... somethingsomething :)

P&T heavily editorialise their Bullshit show, use selective sources, and pull all kinds of psychological tricks to make their case (which they're fully aware of, being veteran magicians). If it were a different kind of show, it wouldn't matter, but it's pretty unethical to position yourself as calling out others on their bullshit when you're making up as much yourself.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#228

Post by acqq » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:54 AM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #199

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as someone who makes free content, you'll know how nice it is when you get lots more views/downloads/clicks (etc) of your content. Captioning enables that because not only do you reach visitors who are unable to hear, but you also reach non-English speakers in the Entire Rest Of The World who can with a few clicks automatically translate those captions into the language which they speak. More viewers is more bett…

Just for context my SO is a nom-native English speaker. She speaks and understands English fine in person (her job involves dealing with demanding people from all over the world, who often don't speak very good English), but whenever we watch something on Netflix or such she can't understand what's going on without subtitles. Films are a bit different from an online cause because of background noise, but don't forget…

She would probably find the lectures much easier to understand than films. It's not only the background noise (the background music is worse) it's also that the voices in today films are often much quieter than the effects and that the acting and directing style for films favours "natural" sounding vocalizing vs. the one used on the theater stage (where ther's really care about pronouncing everything clear).

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#229

Post by karmacondon » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 9:01 AM UTC

Legitimate question: Why isn't this being done with software? The Speech-to-Text problem has been around for a long time, and it seems like there are a lot of people who are financially motivated to solve it. If the best solutions on the market, or ideally a combination of the best solutions, can't provide a baseline decent transcript then why aren't people tripping over themselves to solve this problem?

It seems like an 80% solution would be good enough. Hell, even a 66% solution seems like a good compromise or starting point. If an automatically generated transcript can convey at least 2/3rds of the information from a lecture for a one time or small incremental cost then I don't see why both parties wouldn't be ok with it. Those with disabilities would have to do some extra work to look up garbled words or ideas that don't translate well to text, but it would be within the bounds of reason (say a 1 hour lecture would now take 2 hours to parse). The organizations producing the content would most likely having to pay for speech-to-text software, either several thousand dollars per year per class or $X per lecture, but they would still come out cheaper than paying someone per minute to do the transcription. It isn't a win-win situation, but more of an equitable lose-lose.

They say a fair deal has been reached when both sides in a negotiation are a little bit unhappy. A software solution would seem to do that without ignoring the rights of the disabled or placing prohibitive costs on the content producers. And it would set a precedent going forward: Content producers must make an effort to accommodate those with disabilities, but the disabled should be willing to make some extra effort themselves. Asking an elderly woman in a wheelchair to lift herself over a sidewalk curb is not reasonable. Asking the same person to spend an extra 30 minutes to decipher an unclear transcript might be.

Re: Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses

#230

Post by growupkids » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 10:05 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #195

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the course materials in question used to only be accessible to a very small subset of very smart people who happen to have a very large money to afford tuition at MIT/Harvard, yes, that particular material is a luxury good.

The legal implications go to many schools, so I don't think we're talking about luxury in the context of two elite schools. I think we're talking about the inclusion of minority populations in publicly funded institutions of education, and just how much we want them in our society. Perhaps we do, perhaps we don't, perhaps it's somewhere midway.

Neither MIT nor Harvard are public schools, they are both private.