9 ms·

It’s boneheaded stuff like this that turned me against most accessibility laws in general. They sound like a good idea, but the implementations tend to make the

It’s boneheaded stuff like this that turned me against most accessibility laws in general. They sound like a good idea, but the implementations tend to make the perfect the enemy of the good and raise the barrier to entry too high for anyone who doesn’t have their own legal team.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
There needs to be a system where accessibility issues can be raised and addressed without allowing attorneys to profiteer from the system.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  Most countries do this through government enforcement of regulations through licensing, fees and fines. The US actively avoids this in favor of having private citizens enforce regulations through lawsuits.
  - hedora 4y ago
    The US gets this right (businesses can only be successfully sued if they ignore complaints). California and New York are the only states where you can sue for damages before giving the business a chance to fix it. Those are the states where the ADA is abused.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Why, so the arbitrators of that system can profit instead? And so the people who appoint them can profit from having such a lucrative power?
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
    So that your website is accessible, it's an odd question.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by this. The process can still be something that involves a government body, but one where the complainant cannot sue for damages so long as good-faith efforts to remediate the problem are being made. And hopefully one where a punitive fine/fee is not assessed. I don't think anyone who puts a video online should be punished if they didn't know they had to put closed captions on it.
    - themitigating 4y ago
      Who pays for that government body? There's a reason you can't claim ignorance of the law, because it would be extremely difficult to prove a person was aware something was illegal
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    A proceess that avoids the profiteering is maybe... - complainant makes complaint to government agency - Agency investigates and makes demands for changes - Fines levied by agency on failure to address shortcomings Private suits like we see here (and other ADA-type regulations), where lawyers serve to profit directly, are the problem. Not accessibility regulations in general.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  The problem isn't that attorneys can profiteer. The problem is that if you spend a bunch of time and money to make available a public resource that you're not making any money off of, you shouldn't be forced to choose between spending way more money on it or taking it away from everyone.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    > you shouldn't be forced to choose between spending way more money on it or taking it away from everyone... The unfortunate end result of that is certain segments of the population treated as second-class citizens.
    - drdeca 4y ago
      Then either whoever wants to fix that problem should pay for the additional costs, or accept that they aren't willing to do what is needed to fix the problem.
      - lazyasciiart 4y ago
        Conflating "willingness to do" with "ability to pay" is a fundamental attribution error.
        drdeca 4y ago
        ok, not willing-and-able then.
        lazyasciiart 4y ago
        Ah, so not-rich people ought to just accept that social change is only supposed to be driven by the rich, and stop passing laws and suing people. That's certainly one vision for society, but not one I like.
        drdeca 4y ago
- knaekhoved 4y ago
  Do you understand that "issues can be raised" is necessarily a euphemism for "people can be threatened with fines, bankruptcy, or jail time"?
  - pc86 4y ago
    It is possible for financial penalties to be levied without enriching private attorneys.
- vkou 4y ago
  Yes, that system would be called government-driven enforcement. It shouldn't be my job, as a private citizen, to launch a lawsuit to ensure that vendors comply with relevant laws.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Hello Texas abortion law
    - Spivak 4y ago
      That law is from a purely legal perspective, wild. It doesn’t at all matter the specific issue, this law grants standing for someone to sue who is not harmed nor even involved in an act [1]. This is genuine perversion of the law and we are going to regret not immediately closing this can of worms. This law literally allows the government to end run around all federal and constitutional protections including state constitutions. You could outlaw guns with this, eliminate interracial marriage, prevent women from voting, censor arbitrary speech. [1] I don’t want to say crime because it’s a civil suit. Texas could in theory pass a law like this about anything. This is a long way of saying that the Texas abortion law is a whole different league from ADA where you actually have to be harmed and prove it to sue.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- themitigating 4y ago
  The business would still have to make the change. That costs money
anigbrowl 4y ago
Wouldn't it be wiser to organize for reform of the law (in concert with disability advocates) than to throw the baby out with the bathwater?
- Entinel 4y ago
  Do that before or while you get sued for violations? I think you should organize for reform of the law but it doesn't change the fact that in the meantime you'll be getting sued by 100 lawyers for violations.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    I'd be surprised if there weren't any way to escape liability for by compliance within a reasonable timeframe from when a complaint is first made. This sort of thing is a predictable overhead for a business, and this firm has had a disability compliance statement since 2016 so it's not a wholly new concept to them. It seems equally possible that they decided for business reasons to scrap their free tier offering and used this as an excuse to do so.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      > This sort of thing is a predictable overhead for a business A lot of people who want to create online content are not part of a business, but they get snared up by these laws too.
tomatotomato37 4y ago
While I generally agree, I think adding subtitles are a fairly low bar to pass that help the able & disabled in equal amounts. If you're in public and don't feel like wearing headphones or want to listen to music instead, than even shitty auto-generated captions are a massive improvement in quality
- mminer237 4y ago
  Even only hiring the cheapest, outsourced, $1/minute captioning, for 20,000 videos at 50 minutes each that's at least a million dollars they'd be paying to give content away for free. I don't think that's a low bar.
  - vkou 4y ago
    What was the total cost of producing those videos to begin with?
- bombcar 4y ago
  There is much content that wouldn't ever be put on Youtube if you had to subtitle it (and auto-generated subtitles were not good enough to count). There's a whole different level of effort between recording a presentation and posting it and recording it, subtitling it, and posting it.
- mannerheim 4y ago
  Auto-generated captions were deemed by the court to not be an acceptable solution.
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    There are better and worse systems for this; I tried a few for a project and there are some that are better than my hearing, as in, picking up words I missed correctly, even through thick accent. The court won’t be able to see these are auto generated.
RetpolineDrama 4y ago
>and raise the barrier to entry too high for anyone who doesn’t have their own legal team That's by design. Megacorps can hire an army of lawyers, mom and pop can't. They'll lobby for "standards" only they can meet to squeeze the competition.

BitwiseFool 4y ago

There needs to be a system where accessibility issues can be raised and addressed without allowing attorneys to profiteer from the system.

lazyasciiart 4y ago
Most countries do this through government enforcement of regulations through licensing, fees and fines. The US actively avoids this in favor of having private citizens enforce regulations through lawsuits.
- hedora 4y ago
  The US gets this right (businesses can only be successfully sued if they ignore complaints). California and New York are the only states where you can sue for damages before giving the business a chance to fix it. Those are the states where the ADA is abused.
twblalock 4y ago
Why, so the arbitrators of that system can profit instead? And so the people who appoint them can profit from having such a lucrative power?
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  So that your website is accessible, it's an odd question.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by this. The process can still be something that involves a government body, but one where the complainant cannot sue for damages so long as good-faith efforts to remediate the problem are being made. And hopefully one where a punitive fine/fee is not assessed. I don't think anyone who puts a video online should be punished if they didn't know they had to put closed captions on it.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Who pays for that government body? There's a reason you can't claim ignorance of the law, because it would be extremely difficult to prove a person was aware something was illegal
- alistairSH 4y ago
  A proceess that avoids the profiteering is maybe... - complainant makes complaint to government agency - Agency investigates and makes demands for changes - Fines levied by agency on failure to address shortcomings Private suits like we see here (and other ADA-type regulations), where lawyers serve to profit directly, are the problem. Not accessibility regulations in general.
josephcsible 4y ago
The problem isn't that attorneys can profiteer. The problem is that if you spend a bunch of time and money to make available a public resource that you're not making any money off of, you shouldn't be forced to choose between spending way more money on it or taking it away from everyone.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > you shouldn't be forced to choose between spending way more money on it or taking it away from everyone... The unfortunate end result of that is certain segments of the population treated as second-class citizens.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    Then either whoever wants to fix that problem should pay for the additional costs, or accept that they aren't willing to do what is needed to fix the problem.
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      Conflating "willingness to do" with "ability to pay" is a fundamental attribution error.
      - drdeca 4y ago
        ok, not willing-and-able then.
        lazyasciiart 4y ago
        Ah, so not-rich people ought to just accept that social change is only supposed to be driven by the rich, and stop passing laws and suing people. That's certainly one vision for society, but not one I like.
        drdeca 4y ago
knaekhoved 4y ago
Do you understand that "issues can be raised" is necessarily a euphemism for "people can be threatened with fines, bankruptcy, or jail time"?
- pc86 4y ago
  It is possible for financial penalties to be levied without enriching private attorneys.
vkou 4y ago
Yes, that system would be called government-driven enforcement. It shouldn't be my job, as a private citizen, to launch a lawsuit to ensure that vendors comply with relevant laws.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Hello Texas abortion law
  - Spivak 4y ago
    That law is from a purely legal perspective, wild. It doesn’t at all matter the specific issue, this law grants standing for someone to sue who is not harmed nor even involved in an act [1]. This is genuine perversion of the law and we are going to regret not immediately closing this can of worms. This law literally allows the government to end run around all federal and constitutional protections including state constitutions. You could outlaw guns with this, eliminate interracial marriage, prevent women from voting, censor arbitrary speech. [1] I don’t want to say crime because it’s a civil suit. Texas could in theory pass a law like this about anything. This is a long way of saying that the Texas abortion law is a whole different league from ADA where you actually have to be harmed and prove it to sue.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
themitigating 4y ago
The business would still have to make the change. That costs money

anigbrowl 4y ago

Wouldn't it be wiser to organize for reform of the law (in concert with disability advocates) than to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Entinel 4y ago
Do that before or while you get sued for violations? I think you should organize for reform of the law but it doesn't change the fact that in the meantime you'll be getting sued by 100 lawyers for violations.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  I'd be surprised if there weren't any way to escape liability for by compliance within a reasonable timeframe from when a complaint is first made. This sort of thing is a predictable overhead for a business, and this firm has had a disability compliance statement since 2016 so it's not a wholly new concept to them. It seems equally possible that they decided for business reasons to scrap their free tier offering and used this as an excuse to do so.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    > This sort of thing is a predictable overhead for a business A lot of people who want to create online content are not part of a business, but they get snared up by these laws too.

tomatotomato37 4y ago

While I generally agree, I think adding subtitles are a fairly low bar to pass that help the able & disabled in equal amounts. If you're in public and don't feel like wearing headphones or want to listen to music instead, than even shitty auto-generated captions are a massive improvement in quality

mminer237 4y ago
Even only hiring the cheapest, outsourced, $1/minute captioning, for 20,000 videos at 50 minutes each that's at least a million dollars they'd be paying to give content away for free. I don't think that's a low bar.
- vkou 4y ago
  What was the total cost of producing those videos to begin with?
bombcar 4y ago
There is much content that wouldn't ever be put on Youtube if you had to subtitle it (and auto-generated subtitles were not good enough to count). There's a whole different level of effort between recording a presentation and posting it and recording it, subtitling it, and posting it.
mannerheim 4y ago
Auto-generated captions were deemed by the court to not be an acceptable solution.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  There are better and worse systems for this; I tried a few for a project and there are some that are better than my hearing, as in, picking up words I missed correctly, even through thick accent. The court won’t be able to see these are auto generated.

RetpolineDrama 4y ago

>and raise the barrier to entry too high for anyone who doesn’t have their own legal team That's by design. Megacorps can hire an army of lawyers, mom and pop can't. They'll lobby for "standards" only they can meet to squeeze the competition.