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Just so I understand... In order to make the information more accessible we're removing them from YouTube and requiring users to sign up for an additional acco

• Shank 10y ago
  The difference is that the University can provide their own students ADA accommodations without captioning and making accessible every video on the platform. The only requirement is that the material they provide comply with the ADA; if they don't provide any, they don't have to make any changes to it.
• danso 10y ago
  Yes, this line of reasoning has been discussed in a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856 The gist of it is: you have to think past the current situation. The U.S. passed the American Disabilities Act because it decided that creating an equal society for the disabled was an important value for America. Overlooking violations that disenfranchise the disabled makes that law meaningless. Every business that has had to install handicap-accessible facilities has had to eat major costs that indisputably hurt their bottom-line. But business owners don't get to say, "Well, having a wheelchair accessible doorway would force me to close my shop, so I can't do it, and having my shop open to serve the non-disabled is better than nothing." The other thing to consider is that Berkeley's content is not free content. Berkeley is a state university funded by tax dollars. State employees created, curated, edited, and produced that content for the web, all on taxpayer dime. It would have cost more to close-caption them, but that's the law. And when you don't enforce the law, you get institutions like Berkeley deprioritizing what they are federally mandated to do, which is to follow the ADA.
  • Turing_Machine 10y ago
    Here is the problem with your "enforcing the law" argument: Berkeley is not being inconvenienced in the slightest by "enforcing the law". The general public is. Disabled people aren't being helped in the slightest by "enforcing the law". Instead, they are losing access to material that at least some of them can use. When "enforcing the law" harms people who had nothing to do with violating it, does nothing to help those who were supposed to benefit, and doesn't really punish those who have (allegedly) broken it, it is quite clearly a poorly-written (or perhaps, enforced) law.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • danso 10y ago
      The law argues that disabled people were harmed when Berkeley used public resources to publish something not accessible to the disabled. Again, you have to think more broadly than the specific parties in this incident. Just because the lawsuit was brought by this specific plaintiff doesn't mean that this content was effectively "hidden" from disabled folks that may have been interested in the past. If this lawsuit hadn't raised attention, then it's possible Berkeley (and others in society) would continue to make inaccessible content. The law isn't very effective if it requires a disability advocate to file a lawsuit before it is enforced.
      • Turing_Machine 10y ago
        "The law argues that disabled people were harmed when Berkeley used public resources to publish something not accessible to the disabled." But Berkeley isn't being punished. The general public, including disabled people is. "Just because the lawsuit was brought by this specific plaintiff doesn't mean that this content was effectively "hidden" from disabled folks that may have been interested in the past." I realize that. However, it seems to me that this outcome is, if anything, making the situation worse. Blind people could presumably get something from the audio content. Deaf people could get something from the video content. Now they can't. How is this better?