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

421–430 of 450 posts

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

#421

Post by fragmede »

sgt wrote: post #396
fragmede wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. Computers do though

Computers do? I think you are overestimating the ability that computers have in understanding speech. Think auto-subtitles in YouTube in English that often barely work. In other languages it's much harder, because sentences don't necessarily work the same way as the system was designed/trained for. When e.g Google Translate actually works really well, we can talk. Before that, human translators are needed.

I am thinking auto subtitles on the level of YouTube. I'm not saying I could do a perfect job here, all I was volunteering for was to run the videos through an automated program to meet some letter of the law. Knowledge is being burned here, why wouldn't I rush in to save it with whatever bucket of water I can offer?

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

#422

Post by itsoktocry »

hyperman1 wrote: post #377
roenxi wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's all ADA abuse... The HN gestalt confuses me on this one. The other week the EU had that charger standardisation law and the mood on HN was undeniably positive. Now we have a comment that Californian web accessibility laws are being enforced and the top voted comment is decidedly negative. These laws are remarkably similar in intent and likely outcome. What is different here? Is it the same people but you're al…

Enforcement should start with a warning shot. A business should first get a warning and, say, a month to fix things. My car light was broken once without me knowing. The police stopped us, gave an official notice. I should go to theur building in a week and show a working car light, or I would get a fine. Here we have random people standing at the side of the street, demanding money from everyone with a minor spec of…

I dont get it. The lawsuit is the warning shot; comply or pay.

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

#423

Post by itsoktocry »

yucky wrote: post #266
roenxi wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's all ADA abuse... The HN gestalt confuses me on this one. The other week the EU had that charger standardisation law and the mood on HN was undeniably positive. Now we have a comment that Californian web accessibility laws are being enforced and the top voted comment is decidedly negative. These laws are remarkably similar in intent and likely outcome. What is different here? Is it the same people but you're al…

You think it's weird that people expect random website owners with limited resources not to be held to the same accessibility standards as multi-billion dollar manufactures? Why?

Because requirement to obey the law shouldn't be based on your resources.

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

#424

Post by throwaway41597 »

itsoktocry wrote: post #423
yucky wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it's weird that people expect random website owners with limited resources not to be held to the same accessibility standards as multi-billion dollar manufactures? Why?

Because requirement to obey the law shouldn't be based on your resources.

Considering how vast, obscure and absurd the law is, I think it should. As a matter of fact, it often is.

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

#425

Post by armchairhacker »

jonas21 wrote: post #35
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…

I don't know the specifics of this law, but in other cases, automatically-generated captions have been found to not be good enough. https://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/news/significance-harvard...

YouTube has automatically-generated captions. What makes his content under the law different than YouTube?

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

#426

Post by robocat »

nicbou wrote: post #342
robocat wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you refuse, is there a second level of "extortion" from the lawyers?

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

#427

Post by paranoidrobot »

itsoktocry wrote: post #422
hyperman1 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enforcement should start with a warning shot. A business should first get a warning and, say, a month to fix things. My car light was broken once without me knowing. The police stopped us, gave an official notice. I should go to theur building in a week and show a working car light, or I would get a fine. Here we have random people standing at the side of the street, demanding money from everyone with a minor spec of…

I dont get it. The lawsuit is the warning shot; comply or pay.

Many of these are actually not warning shots. They are demands to settle or we file suit.

There is no chance to cure.

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

#428

Post by phendrenad2 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #425
jonas21 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the specifics of this law, but in other cases, automatically-generated captions have been found to not be good enough. https://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/news/significance-harvard...

YouTube has automatically-generated captions. What makes his content under the law different than YouTube?

YouTube can afford good lawyers, so they get to play by different rules. What, you thought the playing field was level?

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

#429

Post by jonas21 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #425
jonas21 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the specifics of this law, but in other cases, automatically-generated captions have been found to not be good enough. https://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/news/significance-harvard...

YouTube has automatically-generated captions. What makes his content under the law different than YouTube?

YouTube doesn't create the content. They host content created by others. It's the creator's responsibility to comply with accessibility laws.

I don't know how it works in Israel, but in the US, the ADA requires educational institutions to provide equal access to deaf users. They can meet that requirement in several ways, including sign-language interpreters or closed captions. But automatically generated captions do not meet the requirement.

This applies whether the institution hosts the content themselves, on YouTube, or on any other service. For example, a few years ago, UC Berkeley had to take down over 20,000 of its videos from YouTube and iTunes because they only had automatic captions:

https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/03/01/course-capture/

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

#430

Post by carapace »

bombcar wrote: post #127
carapace wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Captioning in English may be a solved problem (and admittedly the auto-captioning by YouTube is moderately decent). Requiring captioning for all content obviously puts more of a burden on someone . Have you close-captioned all videos you've uploaded to various platforms?

I think I'm more sympathetic to people with disabilities because for several years I was close friends with a man who was born quadriplegic. His mom caught a virus while he was gestating and so his arms and legs are gnarled and useless, his spine is curved like the letter "c".

Going around with him in his electric wheelchair was a learning experience for me. Simple things like using the sidewalk or taking the bus could be extremely challenging for him. You want to talk about "burden" to me? Go sleep in a parking lot next to a crippled man for a few months and "then we'll talk" as the dramatic idiots like to say.

Civilized people make allowances for folks who, as we say, are challenged. It's only natural. It's no burden to be a good person, it's its own reward.

> Have you close-captioned all videos you've uploaded to various platforms?

FFS yes. It's not that bleedin' hard, innit?

I'm only bothering to type this because I have a level of basic respect for you bombcar based on some of your other comments. You're on the wrong side of this argument amigo.

Post reply on HN