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synthpop | 3 years ago

Not much of a description of the new accessibility requirements, so I don't think people can have much insight about what exactly broke down here. I'm guessing if a website has more than 500 viewers/visitors a month, it's required that the videos must be captioned? Couldn't this guy just hire a professional captioning service or offer transcripts to users that may need it? This all seems a bit dramatic from the guy, but I've never heard of this accessibility law nor am I familiar with how Israel enforces such things, so some more context would be appreciated.

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knaekhoved|3 years ago

> Couldn't this guy just hire a professional captioning service or offer transcripts to users that may need it

"Can't this guy doing something for free do even more work, under threat of prosecution, for the putative but questionable benefit of a small minority?"

synthpop|3 years ago

This is a fair enough point, I'm not saying the host isn't being wronged by the state in this instance. It is a burden to fund such things that he may not reasonably be able to afford. But I don't know what the standards for required captions actually are because there was no effort made to elaborate or even link to the accessibility law being discussed. It's assumed that auto-generated captions won't work for one reason or another, since that would reasonably be the easiest and most accessible option (for the creator) to implement. I understand that professional captions cost money but cheap alternatives and community-driven efforts certainly exist. Respectfully, if the guy is hosting 15 websites just for these resources, it seems odd that he wouldn't make an effort to at least mention this circumstance or a timeline to shutdown with his users before a total ragequit. There's obviously many details missing throughout all this so while the situation is sad I don't think this is the best example to illustrate exactly what's going on in the HebrewNet.

xupybd|3 years ago

That sounds expensive for something that he is giving away free.

slaymaker1907|3 years ago

I think this is the big issue. Subtitling video is much more difficult than just recording it and while maybe reasonable for well funded groups, it isn't for your average one person shop.

In these cases, it seems like it would be much more reasonable to allow scripts/transcripts in place of subtitles. Putting together a written version is something that many educators do already.

synthpop|3 years ago

Then if it's free, can it really be considered a business in the eyes of the state? Why aren't free auto-generated captions from YouTube sufficient for appeasing the law if no money is being made by the creator from the work? Is it being targeted despite being free because YouTube is still generating ad revenue? Which would mean that it should be YouTube's responsibility for content on its platform to meet the new accessibility standard? Again, I don't know how legal affairs like this work over there and he didn't elaborate, so readers are basically forced to ask questions like this in order to actually understand or sympathize with what's happening here.

cwkoss|3 years ago

I feel like accessibility laws should be targeting businesses. If there isn't a carve out for personally hosted free content, that's a horrible oversight.

Finnucane|3 years ago

There's no way of knowing from the information provided if this is really "I can't do that" or "I just don't want to do that." What effort did he make? What cost was he facing? This is just a little foot-stomping rant. It might feel good, but provides little illumination.

knaekhoved|3 years ago

Does your moral system really have no separation between "capable of doing X" and "obligated to do X under threat of prosecution"?

cptskippy|3 years ago

> Couldn't this guy just hire a professional captioning service or offer transcripts to users that may need it?

Yes, and that is neither cheap or easy.

aerostable_slug|3 years ago

It is actually quite inexpensive for most and very easy, but expense is of course always measured in relative terms.

anigbrowl|3 years ago

Whisper is free and classroom instruction should be a breeze and require little correction, as there likely isn't much background noise or music.