3 ms·

Pornhub sued by deaf man over adult video site's alleged lack of subtitles

40 points by koolba 7y ago

digitalsushi 7y ago
The headline is bursting at the seams with the promise of low effort jokes. Let us throw those tiny fish back into the pond. A human being should be entitled to accessibility, especially by this point in time where much of it can be machine generated.
- developerdylan 7y ago
  But entitled to damages? We are opening the doors to some very shady law firms to shake down tech companies based on laws that were written before the internet.
  - spaceribs 7y ago
    Accessibility is not an entitlement, it's a right.
    - LinuxBender 7y ago
      What types of sites can be shut down for not having braille and subtitle support? Can I lose my hobby/blog domains?
      - rckoepke 7y ago
        I believe that's an open question currently and badly needs legal clarification. One standard proposed at HN from time to time is that maybe websites with high revenue should be required to conform with a specific standard such as W3C's WCAG 2.1 AA. But it's an open question and I don't know if lawmakers are even aware of WCAG, that would be nice.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - rckoepke 7y ago
      I believe you're mostly correct in terms of current legal situation in the USA. Downvotes are primarily going to be from people who would prefer that wasn't the case. However, I believe most accessibility improvements must be "reasonable" accomodations and generally I think aren't intended to be onerous costs (unreasonable). So there's room for debate on whether accessibility should NO LONGER be a right in the USA. And also room for debate on what's reasonable. But I don't think this statement: "accessibility is a right" should be downvoted on HN. Its a fact of law, due to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
      - jolmg 7y ago
        > I don't think this statement: "accessibility is a right" should be downvoted on HN. Its a fact of law This is a global community, though. Many probably interpret the statement from a moral/idealistic standpoint rather than whether or not it's a legal right in any particular jurisdiction.
        OJFord 7y ago
        The situation's essentially the same in the UK (EU?) due to it being a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. You can't say 'well disabled people aren't the target demographic, so no I don't have a ramp' any more than you can say 'whites only'. The other commenter didn't claim it was a moral (as opposed to statutory) right, but even if that was the intention, I think that's a reasonable position to take and argue for, even if others disagree.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    It should be a class action suit if anything, but I can see there being an argument for it on platforms that meet a certain threshold of popularity.
  - DerekL 7y ago
    What does the Internet not existing before the ADA have to do with it? Also, movies existed before the law did, and so did online services (for example, AOL, CompuServe). By the way, the Internet existed, but it wasn't available to the general public.
- ectqmbe 7y ago
  Just gotta say. I really appreciate this comment.
- radu_floricica 7y ago
  But why should this right be absolute? Surely if there ever was a case for subtitles not being essential this is it. So if we accept it we have de facto risk for damages for all non-accessible commercial videos everywhere. This should have a considerable chilling effect. I happen to feel this keenly since I'm in the process of dropping a client who insists of putting damage transfer in our consulting colaboration, in an industry vulnerable to GDPR fines. There is no hourly rate that can make me risk bankrupcy for a bug.
bhouston 7y ago
There is excellent* speech to text now. YouTube uses it for auto cc. I guess it could be used in this case as well.
- mrits 7y ago
  I imagine it could really be optimized as it would only need to pull from a dictionary with 100 words or so
- ryanlol 7y ago
  And then they’d get sued over poor quality subtitles when the STT fails?
jolmg 7y ago
This reminds me of a university (I can't remember which) that supposedly posted free videos of lectures on their website. The content was said to be absolutely awesome. Then they got sued for not having subtitles and the university decided to just take the videos down. It was a loss to all.
- rckoepke 7y ago
  I believe that was s/Stanford/Berkeley. Automated text to speech is so cheap now though. Lectures could be uploaded to YouTube and Google would do it for them.
  - booi 7y ago
    so that google can make money on their content?
    - rckoepke 7y ago
      Context is important. This is Berkeley. They can do text to speech at an inconsequential cost. Other websites probably not so much. It's important to acknowledge economic/technical realities separately from value systems. We can disagree on whether a society should provide for their blind members. But it's harder to disagree on the proposition that Stanford can definitely provide subtitles for these videos without sacrificing anything of consequence on their end. It's also difficult to disagree on the proposition that requiring this of all individual bloggers would be an onerous requirement on them. It's also important that Berkeley is a public school, so a question is "should the government, or parts of the government, be inaccessible to blind people". Right now it's hard to know what the current legal requirements even are, so we tend to only argue over what they should be. And that's more of a discussion of value than fact.
  - jolmg 7y ago
    I still believe they shouldn't be obligated. It's stuff they're giving away for free. It's like giving a beggar a sandwich and then having to compensate the beggar for having included cheese in the sandwich I gifted them when they're lactose-intolerant. I'd just not give away sandwiches in the future, then.
mrguyorama 7y ago
Interestingly enough, for the blind folks looking for adult entertainment Pornhub offers "described videos".
- intopieces 7y ago
  There's an interesting computer vision problem. Can we teach computers to narrate porn?
  - anticensor 7y ago
    Narrated porn would not engage as much as regular porn ;(
rjkennedy98 7y ago
I'm sure this guy also reads playboy for the articles.
Tagbert 7y ago
Someone watches those videos with the sound on?

40 points by koolba 7y ago

The headline is bursting at the seams with the promise of low effort jokes. Let us throw those tiny fish back into the pond. A human being should be entitled to accessibility, especially by this point in time where much of it can be machine generated.

developerdylan 7y ago
But entitled to damages? We are opening the doors to some very shady law firms to shake down tech companies based on laws that were written before the internet.
- spaceribs 7y ago
  Accessibility is not an entitlement, it's a right.
  - LinuxBender 7y ago
    What types of sites can be shut down for not having braille and subtitle support? Can I lose my hobby/blog domains?
    - rckoepke 7y ago
      I believe that's an open question currently and badly needs legal clarification. One standard proposed at HN from time to time is that maybe websites with high revenue should be required to conform with a specific standard such as W3C's WCAG 2.1 AA. But it's an open question and I don't know if lawmakers are even aware of WCAG, that would be nice.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - rckoepke 7y ago
    I believe you're mostly correct in terms of current legal situation in the USA. Downvotes are primarily going to be from people who would prefer that wasn't the case. However, I believe most accessibility improvements must be "reasonable" accomodations and generally I think aren't intended to be onerous costs (unreasonable). So there's room for debate on whether accessibility should NO LONGER be a right in the USA. And also room for debate on what's reasonable. But I don't think this statement: "accessibility is a right" should be downvoted on HN. Its a fact of law, due to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
    - jolmg 7y ago
      > I don't think this statement: "accessibility is a right" should be downvoted on HN. Its a fact of law This is a global community, though. Many probably interpret the statement from a moral/idealistic standpoint rather than whether or not it's a legal right in any particular jurisdiction.
      - OJFord 7y ago
        The situation's essentially the same in the UK (EU?) due to it being a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. You can't say 'well disabled people aren't the target demographic, so no I don't have a ramp' any more than you can say 'whites only'. The other commenter didn't claim it was a moral (as opposed to statutory) right, but even if that was the intention, I think that's a reasonable position to take and argue for, even if others disagree.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  It should be a class action suit if anything, but I can see there being an argument for it on platforms that meet a certain threshold of popularity.
- DerekL 7y ago
  What does the Internet not existing before the ADA have to do with it? Also, movies existed before the law did, and so did online services (for example, AOL, CompuServe). By the way, the Internet existed, but it wasn't available to the general public.
ectqmbe 7y ago
Just gotta say. I really appreciate this comment.
radu_floricica 7y ago
But why should this right be absolute? Surely if there ever was a case for subtitles not being essential this is it. So if we accept it we have de facto risk for damages for all non-accessible commercial videos everywhere. This should have a considerable chilling effect. I happen to feel this keenly since I'm in the process of dropping a client who insists of putting damage transfer in our consulting colaboration, in an industry vulnerable to GDPR fines. There is no hourly rate that can make me risk bankrupcy for a bug.

bhouston 7y ago

There is excellent* speech to text now. YouTube uses it for auto cc. I guess it could be used in this case as well.

mrits 7y ago
I imagine it could really be optimized as it would only need to pull from a dictionary with 100 words or so
ryanlol 7y ago
And then they’d get sued over poor quality subtitles when the STT fails?

jolmg 7y ago

This reminds me of a university (I can't remember which) that supposedly posted free videos of lectures on their website. The content was said to be absolutely awesome. Then they got sued for not having subtitles and the university decided to just take the videos down. It was a loss to all.

rckoepke 7y ago
I believe that was s/Stanford/Berkeley. Automated text to speech is so cheap now though. Lectures could be uploaded to YouTube and Google would do it for them.
- booi 7y ago
  so that google can make money on their content?
  - rckoepke 7y ago
    Context is important. This is Berkeley. They can do text to speech at an inconsequential cost. Other websites probably not so much. It's important to acknowledge economic/technical realities separately from value systems. We can disagree on whether a society should provide for their blind members. But it's harder to disagree on the proposition that Stanford can definitely provide subtitles for these videos without sacrificing anything of consequence on their end. It's also difficult to disagree on the proposition that requiring this of all individual bloggers would be an onerous requirement on them. It's also important that Berkeley is a public school, so a question is "should the government, or parts of the government, be inaccessible to blind people". Right now it's hard to know what the current legal requirements even are, so we tend to only argue over what they should be. And that's more of a discussion of value than fact.
- jolmg 7y ago
  I still believe they shouldn't be obligated. It's stuff they're giving away for free. It's like giving a beggar a sandwich and then having to compensate the beggar for having included cheese in the sandwich I gifted them when they're lactose-intolerant. I'd just not give away sandwiches in the future, then.

mrguyorama 7y ago

Interestingly enough, for the blind folks looking for adult entertainment Pornhub offers "described videos".

intopieces 7y ago
There's an interesting computer vision problem. Can we teach computers to narrate porn?
- anticensor 7y ago
  Narrated porn would not engage as much as regular porn ;(

rjkennedy98 7y ago

I'm sure this guy also reads playboy for the articles.

Tagbert 7y ago

Someone watches those videos with the sound on?