4 ms·

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 ad

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. Besides getting around this, having subtitles or a transcription of your videos actually makes them more useful. My hearing is 100% fine but I find that subtitles make me absorb the information better. I get that this is a PITA, and I agree that subtitles shouldn’t be required. But if you really want your site/videos to stay up it shouldn’t be that hard to just add the subtitles

jonas21 4y ago
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%E2%80%99s-settlement-video-accessibility https://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/news/significance-harvard...
- armchairhacker 4y ago
  YouTube has automatically-generated captions. What makes his content under the law different than YouTube?
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    YouTube can afford good lawyers, so they get to play by different rules. What, you thought the playing field was level?
  - jonas21 4y ago
    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/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/03/01/course-capture/
pfortuny 4y ago
He has clearly made a cost/benefit analysis and has deemed the cost too big. It seems easy until you have to do it.
duxup 4y ago
How effective is that? If youtube is the example, annunciation and speed greatly influence the accuracy, the the point that on some videos they're straight useless... even if easily understood by the human ear.
golemiprague 4y ago
knaekhoved 4y ago
How about I should be able to do whatever I want with my content without some slimy lawyer or smarmy internet commenter giving me a hard time?
- weatherlight 4y ago
  If they knew what the law existed prior to making the business.... Then it sounds like the business owner is at fault here. (Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, either way!) They either comply with the ordinance or fight it in court if they think it goes against the letter of the law. If they don't like the law, petition their representatives to change the law. It's just grifting at this point.
  - Test0129 4y ago
    Or perhaps the business couldn't afford transcription/translation. The GP seems to suggest it's "trivial" to add subtitles. Great! What happens when those subtitles are terrible quality? The goal post will get moved further and further by those in charge until you need professional grade transcription. If you're a small enough business you probably don't have the XX,XXX in legal capital to fight a firm that can throw XXX,XXX in to prove their point. The problem isn't how easy it is, nor how we should do this. It's that someone has a gun to every small business' head telling them to spend money/time/resources on something they may not have the ability to do immediately. No one should be able to tell me how to run my company, or my life. It's up to me to decide to be compliant to accessibility and if I don't it may cost me customers. It's not like handicap ramps that save people's lives in fires. This is a transcription. Ostensibly not NEARLY as important as other ADA regulations. But because of it's ambiguity and relative ease to determine who and who isn't following using data miners it's a cash cow for legal vultures.
    - weatherlight 4y ago
      * The law has existed since 1998 - https://www.boia.org/blog/israels-digital-accessibility-laws-an-overview#:~:text=In%201998%2C%20Israel%20passed%20the,services%2C%20products%2C%20and%20employment https://www.boia.org/blog/israels-digital-accessibility-laws.... * Israeli companies were given 22 years to comply. * Small businesses were required to comply as of 2020. It's a ridiculous argument.
bombcar 4y ago
Autogeneration for non-English languages often is relatively bad or simply doesn't exist at all. Imagine having to record your post in American sign language before being allowed to post it on Hacker News. At some point it becomes silly.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  On that topic I've always wondered about official presentations where the program splits the screen between the actual speaker and a person signing. Seems like that would only be useful for deaf people actually at the event whereas deaf people could be better served by captions.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Some localities require a signer (city council meetings for example) but don’t require captioning (and vice versa). Live captioning is more expensive than “after the fact” captioning, of course.
invalidname 4y ago
I don't think you can autogenerate Hebrew subtitles (I may be wrong). Works for English and other common languages though. I have 25+ hours of video courses. Luckily it's in English so no problem, but for uncommon languages this is an issue.

jonas21 4y ago

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%E2%80%99s-settlement-video-accessibility https://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/news/significance-harvard...

armchairhacker 4y ago
YouTube has automatically-generated captions. What makes his content under the law different than YouTube?
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  YouTube can afford good lawyers, so they get to play by different rules. What, you thought the playing field was level?
- jonas21 4y ago
  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/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/03/01/course-capture/

pfortuny 4y ago

He has clearly made a cost/benefit analysis and has deemed the cost too big. It seems easy until you have to do it.

duxup 4y ago

How effective is that? If youtube is the example, annunciation and speed greatly influence the accuracy, the the point that on some videos they're straight useless... even if easily understood by the human ear.

golemiprague 4y ago

knaekhoved 4y ago

How about I should be able to do whatever I want with my content without some slimy lawyer or smarmy internet commenter giving me a hard time?

weatherlight 4y ago
If they knew what the law existed prior to making the business.... Then it sounds like the business owner is at fault here. (Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, either way!) They either comply with the ordinance or fight it in court if they think it goes against the letter of the law. If they don't like the law, petition their representatives to change the law. It's just grifting at this point.
- Test0129 4y ago
  Or perhaps the business couldn't afford transcription/translation. The GP seems to suggest it's "trivial" to add subtitles. Great! What happens when those subtitles are terrible quality? The goal post will get moved further and further by those in charge until you need professional grade transcription. If you're a small enough business you probably don't have the XX,XXX in legal capital to fight a firm that can throw XXX,XXX in to prove their point. The problem isn't how easy it is, nor how we should do this. It's that someone has a gun to every small business' head telling them to spend money/time/resources on something they may not have the ability to do immediately. No one should be able to tell me how to run my company, or my life. It's up to me to decide to be compliant to accessibility and if I don't it may cost me customers. It's not like handicap ramps that save people's lives in fires. This is a transcription. Ostensibly not NEARLY as important as other ADA regulations. But because of it's ambiguity and relative ease to determine who and who isn't following using data miners it's a cash cow for legal vultures.
  - weatherlight 4y ago
    * The law has existed since 1998 - https://www.boia.org/blog/israels-digital-accessibility-laws-an-overview#:~:text=In%201998%2C%20Israel%20passed%20the,services%2C%20products%2C%20and%20employment https://www.boia.org/blog/israels-digital-accessibility-laws.... * Israeli companies were given 22 years to comply. * Small businesses were required to comply as of 2020. It's a ridiculous argument.

bombcar 4y ago

Autogeneration for non-English languages often is relatively bad or simply doesn't exist at all. Imagine having to record your post in American sign language before being allowed to post it on Hacker News. At some point it becomes silly.

michaelmrose 4y ago
On that topic I've always wondered about official presentations where the program splits the screen between the actual speaker and a person signing. Seems like that would only be useful for deaf people actually at the event whereas deaf people could be better served by captions.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Some localities require a signer (city council meetings for example) but don’t require captioning (and vice versa). Live captioning is more expensive than “after the fact” captioning, of course.

invalidname 4y ago

I don't think you can autogenerate Hebrew subtitles (I may be wrong). Works for English and other common languages though. I have 25+ hours of video courses. Luckily it's in English so no problem, but for uncommon languages this is an issue.