20,000 UC Berkeley Lectures Made Illegal, So We Irrevocably Mirrored Them(lbry.io)
lbry.io
20,000 UC Berkeley Lectures Made Illegal, So We Irrevocably Mirrored Them
https://lbry.io/news/20000-illegal-college-lectures-rescued
203 comments
Previous HN thread on this topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12519761
Also this from a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13867016. And I seem to recall others.
Edit: Yep
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13815764
Edit: Yep
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13768856
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13815764
This is not a dupe, the point of this article is that they have mirrored all of the content.
Looks like a great project. Have they actually got them all available already, or are they promising to do so? It's entirely possible I'm not using it correctly.
$ ~/Downloads/lbrynet-daemon &
$ curl 'http://localhost:5279/lbryapi' --data '{"method":"get","params":{"name":"ucberkeley"}}'
$ cat ~/Downloads/ucberkeley_index.txt
lbry://ucberkeley-3ACwBm9Id7A ---- Electrical Engineering 123 - 2015-04-22: Node-Pore Sensing
lbry://ucberkeley-6CQk6d5P5iY ---- Electrical Engineering 123 - 2015-04-24: How signal processing changes optical imaging
lbry://ucberkeley-vwNtTHED6s8 ---- Computer Science 186 - 2015-05-07
lbry://ucberkeley-lEESG9Bquok ---- Biology 1B - 2015-05-08
lbry://ucberkeley-WtrLpRZv8qg ---- Computer Science 10 - 2015-04-27
lbry://ucberkeley-VVxvj3irxPw ---- Physics 8B - 2015-05-08
lbry://ucberkeley-ZV6AvcJH9kE ---- Computer Science 10 - 2015-05-06: No audio
lbry://ucberkeley-PZqVwVDgWb4 ---- Environ Sci, Policy, and Management C11 - 2015-05-07
lbry://ucberkeley-6inUnzXx7k4 ---- Computer Science 170 - 2015-05-07
lbry://ucberkeley-QLFw93d9Igk ---- Public Health 241 - 2015-05-06from tfa: "The full catalog is over 4 TB and will be synced over the next several days."
From an HN point of view it's a dupe because the topic has had numerous major discussions, including about archiving, and the comments here differ little from those other threads.
While I understand wanting to make things available to the deaf, making them unavailable to everyone else is nuts. It's crazy that the law put UC Berkeley in the position of having to choose between bearing the expense of close-captioning all these videos, and taking them down.
How is society improved by taking them down?
How is society improved by taking them down?
>How is society improved by taking them down?
First of all, I agree with you. I think most others do as well.
The problem is, we can look at a case like this and say, "Obviously we shouldn't lose access to this." Then there's a next time, and a next time, and a next time. And eventually the deaf are at a measurable informational disadvantage to those who can hear. That's why these laws exist.
So, everyone should take a step back and figure out a reasonable solution. I hope that's the reason for the judgment.
First of all, I agree with you. I think most others do as well.
The problem is, we can look at a case like this and say, "Obviously we shouldn't lose access to this." Then there's a next time, and a next time, and a next time. And eventually the deaf are at a measurable informational disadvantage to those who can hear. That's why these laws exist.
So, everyone should take a step back and figure out a reasonable solution. I hope that's the reason for the judgment.
Could we not crowd source the captioning? I know I would help.
The deaf are already at a measurable disadvantage. They're deaf. We should take steps to mitigate that. We should make their lives easier in whatever ways are practical. This is obviously not one of them.
We can't make being deaf the same as not being deaf. Disabled people will always be at some disadvantage to their abled counterparts. All we can do is make reasonable compromises. And it should be utterly obvious to everyone involved that this is not a reasonable compromise.
We can't make being deaf the same as not being deaf. Disabled people will always be at some disadvantage to their abled counterparts. All we can do is make reasonable compromises. And it should be utterly obvious to everyone involved that this is not a reasonable compromise.
It's unfortunate that this is the sort of means by which these issues are addressed, but it's more unfortunate that are society does not take action on issues like these until these sort of means are used.
It's horrible that these were taken down, but it's far more horrible that disadvantaged populations are ignored, and put at further disadvantage.
And ultimately the files are still available in a more egalitarian way than they were before. The outcome is arguably better than the way things were before!
It's horrible that these were taken down, but it's far more horrible that disadvantaged populations are ignored, and put at further disadvantage.
And ultimately the files are still available in a more egalitarian way than they were before. The outcome is arguably better than the way things were before!
> It's horrible that these were taken down, but it's far more horrible that disadvantaged populations are ignored, and put at further disadvantage.
What about blind people? Or people who cannot afford internet access? Or people who don't speak English?
If you take your reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, nobody can give anything away for free, because there will always be some minority that is put at a disadvantage.
What about blind people? Or people who cannot afford internet access? Or people who don't speak English?
If you take your reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, nobody can give anything away for free, because there will always be some minority that is put at a disadvantage.
>The deaf are already at a measurable disadvantage. They're deaf. We should take steps to mitigate that.
Which is why we're not trying to cure their deafness. Instead, we're trying to ensure that the deaf have access to the same information those who aren't deaf have.
Which is why we're not trying to cure their deafness. Instead, we're trying to ensure that the deaf have access to the same information those who aren't deaf have.
By taking information away from those who can hear.
No, by passing laws that require institutions to provide their content in an accessible manner.
The law didn't force UCB to take the videos down, they chose to take them down rather than comply with the law.
Not the same thing..
The law didn't force UCB to take the videos down, they chose to take them down rather than comply with the law.
Not the same thing..
>The law didn't force UCB to take the videos down
It totally did, it's an unreasonable cost, and thus a fake choice.
It totally did, it's an unreasonable cost, and thus a fake choice.
That doesn't change the fact that the outcome here is illogical. If you want to make things accessible, you need to penalize the institutions that don't make things accessible. Instead, we gave them the option to take it down. So the general public got penalized and UC Berkeley's incentives didn't change at all. Now they just won't make their lectures public.
And indeed they already stopped making them public, in 2015. This latest thing is them being forced to remove public access to their historical collection.
Next: how will they make their content easy enough to grasp for the guy with an IQ of 60? He's disabled too, after all...
...says the guy who's partially blind after a stroke
If it feels insane, it's because it is insane
...says the guy who's partially blind after a stroke
If it feels insane, it's because it is insane
"how will they make their content easy enough to grasp for the guy with an IQ of 60? He's disabled too, after all..."
Not only is it false equivalence, it's also addressed in the first (and second) paragraph in the letter from the DoJ: "The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities by public entities. [0]".
"If it feels insane, it's because it is insane"
It only "feels insane" because they violated the law in so many instances. If we consider all the effort, time and cost that went in to making the content in the first place, the cost of compliance is marginal.
[0] https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
Not only is it false equivalence, it's also addressed in the first (and second) paragraph in the letter from the DoJ: "The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities by public entities. [0]".
"If it feels insane, it's because it is insane"
It only "feels insane" because they violated the law in so many instances. If we consider all the effort, time and cost that went in to making the content in the first place, the cost of compliance is marginal.
[0] https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
> If we consider all the effort, time and cost that went in to making the content in the first place, the cost of compliance is marginal.
Nonsense. The content is normal undergrad lectures recorded using no special techniques, with YouTube/Google providing automated captioning. The DOJ letter states specifically that the automated captioning is non-compliant (at least it was in March 2015) and that additionally, the videos would need to be edited such that all relevant visible content is described by the lecturer, and poor color contrast is avoided etc. For 20,000 hours of video the cost of doing that manually is huge relative to the funds available to such a project in a public university struggling with a budget deficit and generally with the difficult financial climate for public higher education.
Nonsense. The content is normal undergrad lectures recorded using no special techniques, with YouTube/Google providing automated captioning. The DOJ letter states specifically that the automated captioning is non-compliant (at least it was in March 2015) and that additionally, the videos would need to be edited such that all relevant visible content is described by the lecturer, and poor color contrast is avoided etc. For 20,000 hours of video the cost of doing that manually is huge relative to the funds available to such a project in a public university struggling with a budget deficit and generally with the difficult financial climate for public higher education.
[deleted]
I would still say it's small compared to the size of the activity. But let's not argue that and take another approach.
Someone below said that they assessed it would cost (at least) $1,000,000. There are 20,000 lectures so that's $50 per lecture, which seems reasonable. With a $3 CPM on youtube, that's ~16,000 views per video. I'm sure there's some hurdle in the way to enable ads, but the point still stands. The costs here per video is small enough that it's hard to at claim that the videos are both very valuable and at the same time impossible to make compliant.
Someone below said that they assessed it would cost (at least) $1,000,000. There are 20,000 lectures so that's $50 per lecture, which seems reasonable. With a $3 CPM on youtube, that's ~16,000 views per video. I'm sure there's some hurdle in the way to enable ads, but the point still stands. The costs here per video is small enough that it's hard to at claim that the videos are both very valuable and at the same time impossible to make compliant.
Wouldn't you say that something on the internet can be valuable without attracting page impressions at a rate high enough to generate advertising revenue?
[deleted]
Many things are valuable. The problem here is that the school don't want to, or can't, pay the full price that it costs to legally distribute the videos. Maybe it's actually fair that the people who want the videos contribute to the cost in some way. Whether that is donations, ads or labor in the form of transcription.
With respect, I think you're over-thinking it.
1. UC Berkeley is an entity that uses the internet
2. The internet can be used, to great advantage, for distributing video files
3. The video files in this case were made with the best intentions of improving the world, and this is also the reason for wanting them to be available to the internet-connected world, for free. They harm no-one, and they make the world a better place.
4. So they should be able to use the internet to distribute their video files, without any special extra costs.
1. UC Berkeley is an entity that uses the internet
2. The internet can be used, to great advantage, for distributing video files
3. The video files in this case were made with the best intentions of improving the world, and this is also the reason for wanting them to be available to the internet-connected world, for free. They harm no-one, and they make the world a better place.
4. So they should be able to use the internet to distribute their video files, without any special extra costs.
I don't think anyone disagrees that the videos are good to have, but it's not the issue of whether or not Berkley should have been distributing the videos, it's that Berkley was not fulfilling its obligations. As outlined in the Department of Justice report [1], Berkley was making these videos after the guidelines were put in place and after Berkley adopted its own guidelines and had a required signoff for all such projects going forward. They also had and have a resource on campus that assists with compliance as required and conceived by Berkley itself.
The issue isn't 20000 formerly made videos aren't compliant, it's that Berkley was making the videos out of compliance while claiming to be compliant.
THe DoJ's assessment is that Berkley has the resources to correct their error without "undue ... [burden]", so their options were take the videos down or engage in a program to meet compliance witht he videos, less they be penalized.
Berkley opted to just take the videos down. I get this from a financial standpoint, even though it'd be nice if they aimed for compliance.
But don't mistake them taking it down as an order so much; they weren't making the videos accessible as they had pledged to, they claimed they were, and they were continuing not to comply. The complaintants called them on it, and it's unfortunate, but they should have been complying from the beginning before they had a video queue of 20000.
I hope from here on out they will make compliant videos and use their on-campus resources; Berkley's response certainly seems to suggest interest in compliance, so I hope that this can just be a tragedy that we can move past.
[1] https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
The issue isn't 20000 formerly made videos aren't compliant, it's that Berkley was making the videos out of compliance while claiming to be compliant.
THe DoJ's assessment is that Berkley has the resources to correct their error without "undue ... [burden]", so their options were take the videos down or engage in a program to meet compliance witht he videos, less they be penalized.
Berkley opted to just take the videos down. I get this from a financial standpoint, even though it'd be nice if they aimed for compliance.
But don't mistake them taking it down as an order so much; they weren't making the videos accessible as they had pledged to, they claimed they were, and they were continuing not to comply. The complaintants called them on it, and it's unfortunate, but they should have been complying from the beginning before they had a video queue of 20000.
I hope from here on out they will make compliant videos and use their on-campus resources; Berkley's response certainly seems to suggest interest in compliance, so I hope that this can just be a tragedy that we can move past.
[1] https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
You're trying to tell us the judgement follows the law.
We're saying the judgement lacks discernment and does more harm than good. I feel the prejudice suffered by everyone far outweights the justice brought by this case.
We're saying the judgement lacks discernment and does more harm than good. I feel the prejudice suffered by everyone far outweights the justice brought by this case.
I disagree with that conclusion. I'm trying to say Berkley has the resources as determined by a third party, has been lying about compliancy, violating Federal and their own implemented procedures, and during the production of these videos had the resources to do what they said they would. They just did not for whatever reason.
Berkley made a mistake, and their solution to correct it is to just take it down. The Justice Department made it clear in their report that it wasn't an all or nothing outcome and they were willing to work with Berkley on a palatable solution, Berkley just chose the easiest option.
Berkley made a mistake, and their solution to correct it is to just take it down. The Justice Department made it clear in their report that it wasn't an all or nothing outcome and they were willing to work with Berkley on a palatable solution, Berkley just chose the easiest option.
>Then there's a next time, and a next time, and a next time. And eventually the deaf are at a measurable informational disadvantage to those who can hear. That's why these laws exist.
Maybe the laws should specify a tax-funded department to go around close-captioning everything then.
The fact that that people writing the law had good intentions doesn't change the fact that they're morons who wrote a demonstrably terrible law. With due apology due all deaf people, I'd rather repeal the law and leave deaf people at a disadvantage than leave it in place and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Maybe the laws should specify a tax-funded department to go around close-captioning everything then.
The fact that that people writing the law had good intentions doesn't change the fact that they're morons who wrote a demonstrably terrible law. With due apology due all deaf people, I'd rather repeal the law and leave deaf people at a disadvantage than leave it in place and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
> Maybe the laws should specify a tax-funded department to go around close-captioning everything then.
Berkeley had one. It was called BRCOE. People creating content before 2015 had the option, or not, of using BRCOE, but had to "self certify" that the content was accessible.
https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
> UC Berkeley’s faculty creates and publishes courses for the public on UC BerkeleyX. Faculty developing UC BerkeleyX courses can, but are not required to, develop courses in collaboration with the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE). BRCOE follows best practices in design for accessibility and also has a quality assurance process that includes deploying various accessibility evaluators; remediating layout, page structure, downloadable or styling accessibility barriers; and obtaining transcripts of all audio and video files associated with a course.
> Prior to July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley also allowed faculty and instructors to design, develop and publish courses through a self-service model, which did not include support from BRCOE. Beginning July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley advised the Department that all faculty using the selfservice model will be asked to sign off on a list of accessibility resource reviews prior to publishing the course. The sign-off statements include:
> 1. I have reviewed and implemented edX’s “Guidelines for Creating Accessible Content.”2
> 2. All PDFs attached to my course follow the University of California Office of the President recommendations.3
> 3. I have reviewed and implemented applicable guidelines into my course from the Web Accessibility team’s resource “Top 10 Tips for Making your Website Accessible.”4
> 4. All mp3 and mp4 files in my course have been submitted for transcripts for SubRip Text (SRT) files.
> 5. All video and audio in my course have accurate captioning available to users through the edX HTML5 player.
Berkeley had one. It was called BRCOE. People creating content before 2015 had the option, or not, of using BRCOE, but had to "self certify" that the content was accessible.
https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
> UC Berkeley’s faculty creates and publishes courses for the public on UC BerkeleyX. Faculty developing UC BerkeleyX courses can, but are not required to, develop courses in collaboration with the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE). BRCOE follows best practices in design for accessibility and also has a quality assurance process that includes deploying various accessibility evaluators; remediating layout, page structure, downloadable or styling accessibility barriers; and obtaining transcripts of all audio and video files associated with a course.
> Prior to July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley also allowed faculty and instructors to design, develop and publish courses through a self-service model, which did not include support from BRCOE. Beginning July 1, 2015, UC Berkeley advised the Department that all faculty using the selfservice model will be asked to sign off on a list of accessibility resource reviews prior to publishing the course. The sign-off statements include:
> 1. I have reviewed and implemented edX’s “Guidelines for Creating Accessible Content.”2
> 2. All PDFs attached to my course follow the University of California Office of the President recommendations.3
> 3. I have reviewed and implemented applicable guidelines into my course from the Web Accessibility team’s resource “Top 10 Tips for Making your Website Accessible.”4
> 4. All mp3 and mp4 files in my course have been submitted for transcripts for SubRip Text (SRT) files.
> 5. All video and audio in my course have accurate captioning available to users through the edX HTML5 player.
UC Berkley is tax funded. They're a public university.
The deaf are at a measurable informational disadvantage whenever I speak.
Does this mean I should have to provide a text annotation?
C.f. Harrison Bergeron
Does this mean I should have to provide a text annotation?
C.f. Harrison Bergeron
We don't need no stinking wheelchair ramp for my store. We never have no wheelchair riders coming in here to shop.
> Then there's a next time, and a next time, and a next time. And eventually the deaf are at a measurable informational disadvantage to those who can hear. That's why these laws exist.
While I can sympathize, I'm not sure holding back the progress of an entire society just to not disadvantage a subset of it is as reasonable as you seem to think. I agree that a better solution would be ideal though.
Perhaps they should just fund a machine learning program for closed captioning, instead of punishing people who are advancing social interests.
While I can sympathize, I'm not sure holding back the progress of an entire society just to not disadvantage a subset of it is as reasonable as you seem to think. I agree that a better solution would be ideal though.
Perhaps they should just fund a machine learning program for closed captioning, instead of punishing people who are advancing social interests.
"I'm not sure holding back the progress of an entire society just to not disadvantage a subset of it is as reasonable as you seem to think."
I think that's a hard argument to make when Encarta 95 was more advanced than this. I'm all for making information public, but a video of the presentation that's not searchable, can't skip from slide to slide, doesn't show the presenter, doesn't have an index, can't click on links etc. isn't exactly the future. And with all the information available these days the standard should really be higher.
I think that's a hard argument to make when Encarta 95 was more advanced than this. I'm all for making information public, but a video of the presentation that's not searchable, can't skip from slide to slide, doesn't show the presenter, doesn't have an index, can't click on links etc. isn't exactly the future. And with all the information available these days the standard should really be higher.
> I'm all for making information public, but a video of the presentation that's not searchable, can't skip from slide to slide, doesn't show the presenter, doesn't have an index, can't click on links etc. isn't exactly the future.
Are you so sure that the learning style you seem to prefer is really ideal for all people? Because you sound really sure, but I'm not sure how that could be.
Are you so sure that the learning style you seem to prefer is really ideal for all people? Because you sound really sure, but I'm not sure how that could be.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Exposing the data, that is already there, is what gives people the choice how to learn. If you just have a blob of video there's no practical way to e.g. search for something.
You can't search lectures you attend in person either, yet that format has endured for quite some time. This video format provides a certain kind of structure that may be suited to some, but not to others. For those others there are alternatives.
"You can't search lectures you attend in person either, yet that format has endured for quite some time."
There weren't really an alternative, so whether the format has endured or not isn't really relevant. Many other schools are doing this differently. At this point your statement about "holding back the progress of an entire society" seems rather hollow. I can't convince you data exposing data is more useful, but I also shouldn't have to. It's one of the fundamentals of computer systems if not the Internet.
There weren't really an alternative, so whether the format has endured or not isn't really relevant. Many other schools are doing this differently. At this point your statement about "holding back the progress of an entire society" seems rather hollow. I can't convince you data exposing data is more useful, but I also shouldn't have to. It's one of the fundamentals of computer systems if not the Internet.
Until society as a whole recognizes the imperative to uplift all its members it does not deserve to move on.
In this case a reasonable response from society, for example, may have been "ok UCB how much will it cost you to sub those? alright, we'll give you the funds from tax money." Lacking such a response all UCB could do was go "oh society, you don't want to help? then you don't get to keep this."
Keep in mind that only a short-sighted person would say UCB messed up here. They didn't. The USA as a whole messed up, so the USA as a whole gets the stick.
In this case a reasonable response from society, for example, may have been "ok UCB how much will it cost you to sub those? alright, we'll give you the funds from tax money." Lacking such a response all UCB could do was go "oh society, you don't want to help? then you don't get to keep this."
Keep in mind that only a short-sighted person would say UCB messed up here. They didn't. The USA as a whole messed up, so the USA as a whole gets the stick.
> Until society as a whole recognizes the imperative to uplift all its members it does not deserve to move on.
That's a hard argument to make too. Some of the people that may have learned from these lectures might go on to champion disability rights, or may go on to invent tech that may address some of those disabilities. We simply can't all progress in lockstep, and trying to force that is probably harmful to all.
That's a hard argument to make too. Some of the people that may have learned from these lectures might go on to champion disability rights, or may go on to invent tech that may address some of those disabilities. We simply can't all progress in lockstep, and trying to force that is probably harmful to all.
Really the right answer was to be taken way back when they decided to put their courses online. They should have budgeted the right amount not only to record and serve these courses, but to also observe this applicable law.
Having come this far without doing so, this situation becomes a reasonable response. And I think everyone knows that it is not ideal.
What would be even better is if the new host would make them ADA accessible, or ask someone to do so for them (or other solution).
Having come this far without doing so, this situation becomes a reasonable response. And I think everyone knows that it is not ideal.
What would be even better is if the new host would make them ADA accessible, or ask someone to do so for them (or other solution).
My understanding is that most of this material was made for use in UCB classes. If a UCB class that used it had a disabled student they would spend the money to accommodate that student. It was not intended at the time for release to the general public.
Now, years later, they released it for free to the general public as is.
Now, years later, they released it for free to the general public as is.
If there is no penalty for not making them available for the deaf, why would any institution pay for captioning?
UCB wasn't ordered to take them down. UCB was ordered to make them accessible, and chose to take them down rather than spend the money.
UCB wasn't ordered to take them down. UCB was ordered to make them accessible, and chose to take them down rather than spend the money.
Out of interest, I tried to work out how much it would cost. A couple of companies offering subtitling services offer basic subtitling for $1/min, and closed captioning (which I think you need for accessibility?) at $5/min. Assuming 1 hour lectures, that's either $1.2 million or $6 million, though you might be able to negotiate a better rate for a big job.
CC includes description of relevant non-verbal sounds, but it's not clear to me why the price difference is so big.
CC includes description of relevant non-verbal sounds, but it's not clear to me why the price difference is so big.
I believe subtitling is done from the script for a show, which is why sometimes what is on the screen doesn't match what the actress says. Typically, it's the same concept, just with slightly different words. They probably just load it up and make sure it's synced.
CC (I think) is done live by transcribing what is actually said. That's certainly true for live events where there is no script.
CC (I think) is done live by transcribing what is actually said. That's certainly true for live events where there is no script.
There were also issues with diagrams, charts, maps, tables, etc presented in the videos that should have links to screen-reader friendly versions for the blind, or audio descriptions.
There may be legal matters of certification. Since CC is required by law, it probably has to meet certain requirements. You probably can't just hand the job off to some native-English-speaking teenager armed with Subtitle Workshop. It likely has to be someone who knows what they are doing and whose work is somehow validated for some sort of compliance. I would imagine.
There seems to be a lot of duplication too, some courses have 4 different copies uploaded from 4 years.
Easy, the rule should be for newly posted content. Most rules aren't retroactive for obvious reasons.
The ADA was a pre-existing rule that went into effect many years ago; they were just recently challenged for allegedly breaking it. There is no retroactive application at issue.
And UCB is also a really really poor university which cannot afford to make them accessible, right?
BTW this would be a good crowdsourcing project.
BTW this would be a good crowdsourcing project.
The consequence of which was forcing an organization to choose between spending an enormous amount of money, or making a previously free resource unavailable. How is this a good thing?
> If there is no penalty for not making them available for the deaf, why would any institution pay for captioning?
Do you realize the insanity of that kind of logic? If there is no penalty for not curing HIV, how can McDonald's sell hamburgers? Where does it end?
> If there is no penalty for not making them available for the deaf, why would any institution pay for captioning?
Do you realize the insanity of that kind of logic? If there is no penalty for not curing HIV, how can McDonald's sell hamburgers? Where does it end?
The logic isn't insane if applied to a better example.
If there's no penalty to making cars without seatbelts, then carmakers will make cars without seatbelts. So we outlaw cars without seatbelts. This is exactly the society we live in.
Sure, a car with no seatbelts might be better than no car at all. But society has decided that cost is worth it, in order to incentivize widespread installation of seatbelts.
Berkeley has chosen to throw its car away rather than install the legally required seatbelts.
Not all regulations are good (and this one may not be), but I think the logic behind them is understandable, not insane.
If there's no penalty to making cars without seatbelts, then carmakers will make cars without seatbelts. So we outlaw cars without seatbelts. This is exactly the society we live in.
Sure, a car with no seatbelts might be better than no car at all. But society has decided that cost is worth it, in order to incentivize widespread installation of seatbelts.
Berkeley has chosen to throw its car away rather than install the legally required seatbelts.
Not all regulations are good (and this one may not be), but I think the logic behind them is understandable, not insane.
That seems like a poor example. Seatbelts are a measurable safety benefit to nearly every single person who drives or rides in a car.
The deaf OR hard of hearing population of the united states is roughly 4.1% (10.6 million).
A closer example would maybe be: if paraplegics needed special seatbelts to be safe in cars, should we mandate that all car makers be required to install special seatbelts that are paraplegic compatible? (Paraplegics make up a small fraction of the population of the United States - somewhere around 300,000).
Obviously that comparison has holes in it as well, but it is a lot closer. And I would think the answer would be no, not because of heartlessness, but simply because it doesn't make sense. I assume, again not heartlessly, that most paraplegics do not drive. Likewise, most deaf people will not access these videos.
It seems closer to insanity than reasonableness to mandate either of these things.
The deaf OR hard of hearing population of the united states is roughly 4.1% (10.6 million).
A closer example would maybe be: if paraplegics needed special seatbelts to be safe in cars, should we mandate that all car makers be required to install special seatbelts that are paraplegic compatible? (Paraplegics make up a small fraction of the population of the United States - somewhere around 300,000).
Obviously that comparison has holes in it as well, but it is a lot closer. And I would think the answer would be no, not because of heartlessness, but simply because it doesn't make sense. I assume, again not heartlessly, that most paraplegics do not drive. Likewise, most deaf people will not access these videos.
It seems closer to insanity than reasonableness to mandate either of these things.
Cars without seatbelt affect everyone. Subtitle-less videos only affect a minority.
People pay for cars with seatbelt. Free videos don't earn income.
People pay for cars with seatbelt. Free videos don't earn income.
Yes, but there are limits to that logic. And people seem to be taking the position that the moral hazard inherently justifies the policy. While I am taking the position that the moral hazard justifies the policy within reason, and that this particular example falls clearly outside that definition.
> The consequence of which was forcing an organization to choose between spending an enormous amount of money, or making a previously free resource unavailable.
Or going to court and challenging the government's interpretation, as, in fact, the ADA requires only reasonable accommodation.
The university chose that it would be a better use of its time to spend the effort making future content more accessible than establishing, as it quite possibly could, that it had no obligation to do so for this kind of content in the circumstances in which it was offered. Which is clearly it's decision to make, but when the University deliberately chose not to seek an authoritative resolution of it's obligations under the law, it is misleading to claim that the outcome represents it's obligation under the law.
Or going to court and challenging the government's interpretation, as, in fact, the ADA requires only reasonable accommodation.
The university chose that it would be a better use of its time to spend the effort making future content more accessible than establishing, as it quite possibly could, that it had no obligation to do so for this kind of content in the circumstances in which it was offered. Which is clearly it's decision to make, but when the University deliberately chose not to seek an authoritative resolution of it's obligations under the law, it is misleading to claim that the outcome represents it's obligation under the law.
>How is this a good thing?
If I'm deaf, I know that you have no advantage over me merely because you can hear. I think that's "good". The laws are in place to protect minorities.
If I'm deaf, I know that you have no advantage over me merely because you can hear. I think that's "good". The laws are in place to protect minorities.
At the risk misinterpreting what may be an obvious attempt to be sarcastic...
Surely you jest. As the parent noted, such reasoning is squarely on the path to insanity.
What a society could possibly attempt to ensure is "equity". What you are suggesting should be sought is "equality". Since this is (trivially) impossible to attain, to attempt to do so is a fool's errand.
You may be measurably more intelligent than me. Should society force some crippling drug on you, to ensure I am not relatively hindered, merely because you can think more effectively than me?
Some appear to believe so...
Surely you jest. As the parent noted, such reasoning is squarely on the path to insanity.
What a society could possibly attempt to ensure is "equity". What you are suggesting should be sought is "equality". Since this is (trivially) impossible to attain, to attempt to do so is a fool's errand.
You may be measurably more intelligent than me. Should society force some crippling drug on you, to ensure I am not relatively hindered, merely because you can think more effectively than me?
Some appear to believe so...
>Surely you jest. As the parent noted, such reasoning is squarely on the path to insanity.
What's insane is people comparing the government drugging us to equalize our IQ to the enforcement of a law that requires a publicly funded institution to put closed captions on their videos if they're to be publicly available.
I'll bet a reasonable solution comes from this, sets a precedent for the future, and the huffing and puffing will be for naught.
What's insane is people comparing the government drugging us to equalize our IQ to the enforcement of a law that requires a publicly funded institution to put closed captions on their videos if they're to be publicly available.
I'll bet a reasonable solution comes from this, sets a precedent for the future, and the huffing and puffing will be for naught.
Harrison Bergeron comes to mind...
Yes, but deaf people are always at a disadvantage. The law cannot eliminate that. All it can do is make reasonable compromises to mitigate it. This compromise is very clearly not reasonable.
>Yes, but deaf people are always at a disadvantage.
I agree.
>The law cannot eliminate that. All it can do is make reasonable compromises to mitigate it.
I also agree with this. And I believe that's what this law is doing: saying "you may be at a disadvantage in these ways, but you won't be in this way if we can help it."
I agree.
>The law cannot eliminate that. All it can do is make reasonable compromises to mitigate it.
I also agree with this. And I believe that's what this law is doing: saying "you may be at a disadvantage in these ways, but you won't be in this way if we can help it."
The law doesn't say to remove the content. It says to make it accessible.
Americans with Disabilities Act is law.
It's everything that's wrong with regulation. Even the logic of punishment rather than reward is flawed (you train humans with positive feedback/reinforcement, the negative kind works comparatively worse or not at all).
Edit: I understand the downvotes, relatively (e.g. as seen by Californians relatively to the US in general). Just know that I speak from France, a country where regulation has gone way, way overboard insofar as it cripples the economy moreso than it protects individuals, by ultimately preventing any reform/change/disruption whatsoever in many, many sectors. There's such a thing as "balance" and "intelligence in regulating". On a general level I very much advocate for a strict body of regulation; I just think it should be as minimal, solid, logical and simple (intelligible) as possible. Which is very much not the case in my country.
Edit: I understand the downvotes, relatively (e.g. as seen by Californians relatively to the US in general). Just know that I speak from France, a country where regulation has gone way, way overboard insofar as it cripples the economy moreso than it protects individuals, by ultimately preventing any reform/change/disruption whatsoever in many, many sectors. There's such a thing as "balance" and "intelligence in regulating". On a general level I very much advocate for a strict body of regulation; I just think it should be as minimal, solid, logical and simple (intelligible) as possible. Which is very much not the case in my country.
Reinforcement (including positive reinforcement) training for adult humans works especially poorly and attempts to implement it often have perverse, demotivating effects.
Regulation is more about creating incentives than conditioning.
Regulation is more about creating incentives than conditioning.
Do you have sources about that? My current understanding is completely otherwise. Taken from the general wiki article[1]:
> The study of reinforcement has produced an enormous body of reproducible experimental results. Reinforcement is the central concept and procedure in special education, applied behavior analysis, and the experimental analysis of behavior and is a core concept in some medical and psychopharmacology models, particularly addiction, dependence, and compulsion.
Which also confirms pretty much everything an ex-gf, who completed a master in Psychology when we were dating, told me about positive versus negative reinforcement. Basically, stick doesn't work much, carrot does.
I agree that it's a widely different topic for regulation. I probably shouldn't have mixed the two so directly, there are many discrepancies. However it's been shown that incentives (i.e. rewards, positive reinforcement of some behaviors) work at the societal level, e.g. family/reproduction incentives (giving money to people who have children; I don't know how these policies are called in the US), or incentives to buy houses, newer cars, etc.
> more about creating incentives than conditioning
I fail to grasp how the former isn't a particular subset of the latter.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement
> The study of reinforcement has produced an enormous body of reproducible experimental results. Reinforcement is the central concept and procedure in special education, applied behavior analysis, and the experimental analysis of behavior and is a core concept in some medical and psychopharmacology models, particularly addiction, dependence, and compulsion.
Which also confirms pretty much everything an ex-gf, who completed a master in Psychology when we were dating, told me about positive versus negative reinforcement. Basically, stick doesn't work much, carrot does.
I agree that it's a widely different topic for regulation. I probably shouldn't have mixed the two so directly, there are many discrepancies. However it's been shown that incentives (i.e. rewards, positive reinforcement of some behaviors) work at the societal level, e.g. family/reproduction incentives (giving money to people who have children; I don't know how these policies are called in the US), or incentives to buy houses, newer cars, etc.
> more about creating incentives than conditioning
I fail to grasp how the former isn't a particular subset of the latter.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement
I wonder what kind of legal footing they would have had if they open-sourced the closed captioning and had it crowd-sourced
Rather than shouting in an echo chamber about how just or unjust this is, coming up with solutions like this is a much better idea.
We already have the videos, we really don't need the original school's help. Would it be possible for someone to make a web interface where this could be done in 5 or 10 minute chunks?
We already have the videos, we really don't need the original school's help. Would it be possible for someone to make a web interface where this could be done in 5 or 10 minute chunks?
These are videos they're voluntarily uploading for the benefit of non-students, why should they have to make them accessible? If it was an issue where one of their own students needed the videos then that would be different, but these are non-UCB students.
So you're recognizing that there is no penalty. Not to the institution; just to everyone else, deaf or not.
Why would any institution pay for captioning if they can just come around to compliance by taking the videos down without any penalty.
This is now how you use legislation to move toward a the goal of greater (ultimately universal) accessibility.
Why would any institution pay for captioning if they can just come around to compliance by taking the videos down without any penalty.
This is now how you use legislation to move toward a the goal of greater (ultimately universal) accessibility.
It's not just about the Berkeley videos, but about what sort of rules and standards we have. We don't ban speech that is bad for society for the same sort of reasons. We've decided that we having rules and spending the time, money, and effort necessary to include the deaf and disabled. If you carve out an exception for free class lecture videos for Berkeley, it makes it more difficult to enforce these rules in all the circumstances that we want.
This is ass-backwards. If a business has to spend extra time and effort to fulfill some regulation to provide a free service, it's just not gonna happen. Everybody loses.
Even if it wasn't a free service, if the regulations make the venture unprofitable, it won't happen. Same for taxes, etc.
If the legislators want "standards", they had better pay for it out of the tax payers pockets, instead of shifting the burden to business, where it doesn't belong.
Even if it wasn't a free service, if the regulations make the venture unprofitable, it won't happen. Same for taxes, etc.
If the legislators want "standards", they had better pay for it out of the tax payers pockets, instead of shifting the burden to business, where it doesn't belong.
UC Berkley is a Tax funded university, so your argument is bunk.
And I disagree anyways; if the business wants to do something, they are responsible for following the law. That includes making reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. Because we as a society have decided that it's more important that those persons be allowed to participate in society than it is for a business to make money.
And I disagree anyways; if the business wants to do something, they are responsible for following the law. That includes making reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. Because we as a society have decided that it's more important that those persons be allowed to participate in society than it is for a business to make money.
I'm making a general statement, not specific to UC Berkeley. Even if you don't consider UCB a business, most of its income does not actually come from taxes and its spending isn't going to be all that different from a private university. Clearly, their decision here was not to spend, but to delete instead. That was the economical thing to do.
You're also missing the point completely. Whether a business wants to do something depends on whether it is expected to be profitable. If the laws make it unprofitable, then it doesn't want to do it.
You're posing a false dilemma with "it's more important that those persons be allowed to participate in society than it is for a business to make money". If society wants participation, society should pay for it, not just business. It's just really easy for the government to use people with disabilities, because opposing such legislation is unpopular.
Who decides what's reasonable, anyway? If you're a small business, building some ramp can easily break your budget. If you're McDonalds, it make no difference. Are you going to treat both companies equally? If so, you're sponsoring big corporate.
You're also missing the point completely. Whether a business wants to do something depends on whether it is expected to be profitable. If the laws make it unprofitable, then it doesn't want to do it.
You're posing a false dilemma with "it's more important that those persons be allowed to participate in society than it is for a business to make money". If society wants participation, society should pay for it, not just business. It's just really easy for the government to use people with disabilities, because opposing such legislation is unpopular.
Who decides what's reasonable, anyway? If you're a small business, building some ramp can easily break your budget. If you're McDonalds, it make no difference. Are you going to treat both companies equally? If so, you're sponsoring big corporate.
This isn't a clear "everyone is worse off" situation. The tradeoff gets you closer to a society where everyone can participate with reasonable accommodation. Whether this level of fairness is worth the cost is a legitimate point to discuss, but it's not really fair to elide the fact that people value a fair society.
How so? This is a rather a case where a law is being followed to the letter to an objectively worse individual outcome.
It's highly questionable that having 20,000 free videos removed from public access is the intention behind the law. More likely, it's an unwelcome side-effect.
Why should the law not allow an exception for free content? Why should the law put the burden squarely on the provider? The tradeoff isn't in having "everyone" participate or not, it's in who pays the bill.
It's highly questionable that having 20,000 free videos removed from public access is the intention behind the law. More likely, it's an unwelcome side-effect.
Why should the law not allow an exception for free content? Why should the law put the burden squarely on the provider? The tradeoff isn't in having "everyone" participate or not, it's in who pays the bill.
I'm judging it on rule utilitarianism more than act utilitarianism. Yes, removing videos from public access is a bad thing. There's compensating effects from following a rule that makes Berkeley take down a bunch of videos.
It's the same justification for most regulations. It's the benefit of having high-quality goods produced vs the cost of having fewer goods produced.
You could argue that a car with no seatbelts is better than no car at all, but as a society we've decided that seatbelts are needed or else the car cannot be driven. This incentivizes car producers to produce cars with seatbelts, even though cars get slightly more expensive and slightly fewer cars may be sold.
If someone builds a car with no seatbelts, upon being told by a court that the car needs seatbelts, they may even choose to junk the car rather than pay to install the legally required seatbelts. Their choice.
The same principle applies here.
Of course, this case might be different for two reasons. First, the videos have already been produced, so we see the direct harm of the regulation (often the harm is invisible). Second, the trade-off here between higher-quality goods vs more goods might have a different balance in this situation than others.
You could argue that a car with no seatbelts is better than no car at all, but as a society we've decided that seatbelts are needed or else the car cannot be driven. This incentivizes car producers to produce cars with seatbelts, even though cars get slightly more expensive and slightly fewer cars may be sold.
If someone builds a car with no seatbelts, upon being told by a court that the car needs seatbelts, they may even choose to junk the car rather than pay to install the legally required seatbelts. Their choice.
The same principle applies here.
Of course, this case might be different for two reasons. First, the videos have already been produced, so we see the direct harm of the regulation (often the harm is invisible). Second, the trade-off here between higher-quality goods vs more goods might have a different balance in this situation than others.
Taking them down also makes them less available to deaf people. If you're deaf, and a video without CC is available that you're interested in, you can get someone who can hear to translate it for you (perhaps in real time into sign language or do the CC work or whatever). If the video is gone, you're out of luck, no matter your auditory capability or lack thereof.
"I can't hear it, so I'm better off if nobody else can either" doesn't really compute.
Note that on YouTube you can open access to a video for community contribution. Someone other than the original uploader can come along and provide closed captioning.
"I can't hear it, so I'm better off if nobody else can either" doesn't really compute.
Note that on YouTube you can open access to a video for community contribution. Someone other than the original uploader can come along and provide closed captioning.
Aren't we neglecting people with deafblindness? Hearing-enabled and deaf people should be blocked from accessing all online courses until the videos are translated into braille.
If you have closed captions, that should not be an issue, because letters map to braille characters.
> braille characters
No matter what you do, there'll always be some group who can't access the content.
E.g. people who are deaf, blind, and had both hands amputated.
No matter what you do, there'll always be some group who can't access the content.
E.g. people who are deaf, blind, and had both hands amputated.
Yes, and yet Stephen Hawking is still able to write books. For the Hacker News audience, I would think every barrier should present at least an interesting technical or business challenge.
I tend to agree with the other commenters that this seems like a good project for crowdsourcing because it's something many people do care a lot about, although I can see how that might not satisfy ADA compliance.
For all the talk about these types of issues, it seems to be very rare for tech conference videos to be captioned, see:
https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&type1=Conference&talk_type...
I think this is potentially a good area to explore collectively - any technology solutions that make accessibility cheaper would feed back to places like UC Berkeley.
I tend to agree with the other commenters that this seems like a good project for crowdsourcing because it's something many people do care a lot about, although I can see how that might not satisfy ADA compliance.
For all the talk about these types of issues, it seems to be very rare for tech conference videos to be captioned, see:
https://www.findlectures.com/?p=1&type1=Conference&talk_type...
I think this is potentially a good area to explore collectively - any technology solutions that make accessibility cheaper would feed back to places like UC Berkeley.
You're right. Damn it Berkeley, you could have just recruited some eager undergrads to caption the videos.
Do the captions need to meet a very high standard of quality? If not, automated captioning would have been a good student project.
Do the captions need to meet a very high standard of quality? If not, automated captioning would have been a good student project.
For those not familiar, there are braille displays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display
[deleted]
It's not. And I'd really like to know if many deaf folks would really feel like this properly serves their interests.
> While I understand wanting to make things available to the deaf, making them unavailable to everyone else is nuts.
Especially as they're being offered for free. The "If X group cannot have it, nobody can have it" reasoning seems mad. So because the deaf cannot get value from those videos, others cannot either. I'm not deaf, but I cannot imagine many deaf people thinking this is reasonable.
You might also think of other minorities. Why isn't it also illegal for free lectures not to accommodate blind people? Or those without internet access at all. If you take the "X group doesn't have it, nobody can have it" reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, it seems to me that nothing can be provided for free to anyone.
Especially as they're being offered for free. The "If X group cannot have it, nobody can have it" reasoning seems mad. So because the deaf cannot get value from those videos, others cannot either. I'm not deaf, but I cannot imagine many deaf people thinking this is reasonable.
You might also think of other minorities. Why isn't it also illegal for free lectures not to accommodate blind people? Or those without internet access at all. If you take the "X group doesn't have it, nobody can have it" reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, it seems to me that nothing can be provided for free to anyone.
You might also think of other minorities. Why isn't it also illegal for free lectures not to accommodate blind people?
The lawsuit addressed both deaf and blind students. In addition to captions, there should be screen-reader friendly versions of pages and documents, audio descriptions of visual data, etc. Public universities have limited budgets, so to spend possibly millions of dollars to support a free offering may not have been feasible.
Compare this to a free art museum operated by a local non-profit , and suddenly being forced to bring the building up to ADA code, building wheelchair ramps, installing elevators, providing audio descriptions of artwork, braille descriptions, etc. Instead of spending millions that they don't have to complete that work, they shut down the museum.
1. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/20/berkeley-may-...
The lawsuit addressed both deaf and blind students. In addition to captions, there should be screen-reader friendly versions of pages and documents, audio descriptions of visual data, etc. Public universities have limited budgets, so to spend possibly millions of dollars to support a free offering may not have been feasible.
Compare this to a free art museum operated by a local non-profit , and suddenly being forced to bring the building up to ADA code, building wheelchair ramps, installing elevators, providing audio descriptions of artwork, braille descriptions, etc. Instead of spending millions that they don't have to complete that work, they shut down the museum.
1. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/20/berkeley-may-...
Then what is the proper vector of attack for enforcement? If not fines (and the secondary effects of fines as seen here), then what? Public funds?
It's not
How is society improved by making a law optional?
Apparently most of society gains 20,000 free lectures on YouTube.
In all seriousness, you're arguing a false position because nobody is arguing we live in a society of optional laws. I think most people are lamenting the consequences of this particular law for this particular circumstance.
Both sides have legitimate grievances. Hearing impaired people should have access to free lectures if a university is offering them. It puts hearing impaired students at a disadvantage when they don't have access to the same resources as hearing impaired. On the other hand, we want to live in a world where it's not prohibitively expensive to post lectures that are accessible to everybody.
So, what do we do?
Can we solve this problem so both parties have good solutions? Could we raise money on Kickstarter and post the transcription jobs on Amazon's Mechanical Turk? Is this a good opportunity to start a voice recognition moonshot effort where schools can compete to transcribe audio for esoteric subjects?
In all seriousness, you're arguing a false position because nobody is arguing we live in a society of optional laws. I think most people are lamenting the consequences of this particular law for this particular circumstance.
Both sides have legitimate grievances. Hearing impaired people should have access to free lectures if a university is offering them. It puts hearing impaired students at a disadvantage when they don't have access to the same resources as hearing impaired. On the other hand, we want to live in a world where it's not prohibitively expensive to post lectures that are accessible to everybody.
So, what do we do?
Can we solve this problem so both parties have good solutions? Could we raise money on Kickstarter and post the transcription jobs on Amazon's Mechanical Turk? Is this a good opportunity to start a voice recognition moonshot effort where schools can compete to transcribe audio for esoteric subjects?
Yep, you're absolutely right that both sides have grievances.
But
I'm trying to point out that a) This situation is not crazy, at all. It's an extension of how our society and the law works. b) Pretending that it's okay to ignore a law because the majority are not affected is short sighted.
Yep, sometimes it's hard/expensive to abide by laws catered towards minorities. Tough shit. That's exactly the reason the law exists in the first place, because it's too expensive for society to do the right thing by default.
But
nobody is arguing we live in a society of optional lawsI'm trying to point out that a) This situation is not crazy, at all. It's an extension of how our society and the law works. b) Pretending that it's okay to ignore a law because the majority are not affected is short sighted.
Yep, sometimes it's hard/expensive to abide by laws catered towards minorities. Tough shit. That's exactly the reason the law exists in the first place, because it's too expensive for society to do the right thing by default.
> How is society improved by making a law optional?
In many ways.
People ignore speed limits pretty frequently. Traffic flows faster, more efficiently because everyone is breaking the law.
Laws against gay marriage and other discriminatory laws. Society is greatly improved by making them optional. Some states have strange and bizarre laws in the books but nobody is bothering enforcing them. Everyone treats them as optional and the society is better for it.
In many ways.
People ignore speed limits pretty frequently. Traffic flows faster, more efficiently because everyone is breaking the law.
Laws against gay marriage and other discriminatory laws. Society is greatly improved by making them optional. Some states have strange and bizarre laws in the books but nobody is bothering enforcing them. Everyone treats them as optional and the society is better for it.
I agree that bad laws should be struck down. So if you're saying the ADA is a bad law - like low speed limits and banning gay marriage... sure.
I think it would be hard to argue that the ADA is a bad law, however. If it's not a bad law, it should not be optional. Otherwise it's not, by definition, a law.
I think it would be hard to argue that the ADA is a bad law, however. If it's not a bad law, it should not be optional. Otherwise it's not, by definition, a law.
Driving is not legal without a license. Hunting is not legal without a permit. Building structures in many areas is not legal without filing plans; surveys; zoning; permits; or other expert services.
We live in a society with many optional laws already.
This law was put in place to protect hearing disabled people not punish everyone else. It also wasn't intended to deprive the world of 20,000 free lectures.
Perhaps these videos could be granted some kind of temporary waiver until they can be closed captioned. Youtube even has system for community driven captions. People have suggested crowdfunding projects. People have lots of ideas for fixing this.
If the videos are down the incentive to make them available to the deaf is removed. Some kind of optional application of the here could incentivize a fix that works for everyone.
We live in a society with many optional laws already.
This law was put in place to protect hearing disabled people not punish everyone else. It also wasn't intended to deprive the world of 20,000 free lectures.
Perhaps these videos could be granted some kind of temporary waiver until they can be closed captioned. Youtube even has system for community driven captions. People have suggested crowdfunding projects. People have lots of ideas for fixing this.
If the videos are down the incentive to make them available to the deaf is removed. Some kind of optional application of the here could incentivize a fix that works for everyone.
They first suggested that they were considering removing the videos back in September last year:
http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/09/13/a-statement-on-online-co...
It would not surprise me one bit if the advanced notice of the takedown was made precisely because they knew someone would take it upon themselves to archive the content and make it available elsewhere :)
http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/09/13/a-statement-on-online-co...
It would not surprise me one bit if the advanced notice of the takedown was made precisely because they knew someone would take it upon themselves to archive the content and make it available elsewhere :)
I think a good option at that time would have been starting a campaign to get volunteers that would put in the transcription effort. Maybe this is still possible.
Between Berkeley and Gallaudet and the Libertarian market worshippers I think we are being played. Everyone wins, getting exposure for their enragement, whereas every other course, from MIT, Stanford, Yale &c just had subtitles.
Is it possible the difference is Ivy League (with larger more discretionary budgets) vs. public university? Do the same rules even apply to the private institutions?
Per the link, private colleges are required to provide hearing support, and have been sued for not doing so, but they operate under somewhat less stringent restrictions. (Specifically, it looks like they're only required to accommodate their own students, and so wouldn't be targetable for making content freely available if no one internal pressed the matter?) And certainly, they aren't running hundred million dollar deficits like Berkeley currently is.
https://www.nad.org/resources/education/higher-education/pri...
https://www.nad.org/resources/education/higher-education/pri...
Setup a github repo where people can contribute subtitles for the single classes.
Dunno how the law about public funding applies to private institutions. The Ivies are certainly receiving public funding through the many federal agencies, but the funds are earmarked for research support. On the other hand, you used to see so many lawsuits revolving around Title IX and sports, with the women ending up winning, and the sports programs are certainly not grant-supported.
There have to be speech to text applications targeted at automatic captioning... they don't need 100% accuracy to help a lot of people, just block curse words.
Was the court conclusion so onerous that autocaptioning wouldn't meet the requirements unless they actually paid a proofreader to check over everything by hand? This seems like software that would cost $100 at most.
Was the court conclusion so onerous that autocaptioning wouldn't meet the requirements unless they actually paid a proofreader to check over everything by hand? This seems like software that would cost $100 at most.
Last time I saw Youtube's automatic subtitling, it was rubbish, and if Google hasn't got this solved, I doubt anyone has. Lectures are also likely to include some less common, discipline specific words, and to be hard to follow if the transcription doesn't record those accurately. So I can totally imagine that manual subtitling is necessary to meet the required standard.
CART is currently required, which takes a trained human transcriber.
I don't know how good youtube's CC is versus other options, but it explicitly said youtube's wasn't good enough.
Yes, the court rejected automatic captioning as too inaccurate.
Everyone seems really focused on the lack of captions. The complainants were people with hearing impairment, but the DoJ are very clear: it's not just lack of captioning.
https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
> Between March and April 2015, the Department reviewed the sixteen MOOCs then available to the public on UC BerkeleyX. None of the courses reviewed were entirely accessible. For each course reviewed, it would be difficult for an individual with a hearing, vision, or manual disability to understand the content conveyed to course participants. Examples of barriers to access found across most course content included the following:
> 1. Some videos did not have captions. As a result, the audio content in the video was inaccessible to people with hearing disabilities.
> 2. Some videos were inaccessible to people with vision disabilities for several reasons. First, many videos did not provide an alternative way to access images or visual information (e.g., graphs, charts, animations, or urls on slides), such as audio description, alternative text, PDF files, or Word documents. Second, videos containing text sometimes had poor color contrast, which made the text unreadable for those with low vision. Finally, information was sometimes conveyed using color alone (for instance, a chart or graph would differentiate information only by color), which is not accessible to individuals with vision disabilities.
> 3. Many documents were inaccessible to individuals with vision disabilities who use screen readers because the document was not formatted properly. For instance, headings were sometimes neither defined nor arranged in a logical order; page structure was not always defined, contained empty elements or was incorrectly defined; some tables did not have row and column headers defined; math equations were not always defined in a comprehendible way. Many PDFs either did not have a tag structure defined or the tag structure was incorrect. Individuals with vision disabilities who use screen readers would have a difficult time understanding and navigating the content.
> 4. Some links were not keyboard accessible and did not indicate whether they were expandable or collapsible, so individuals with vision disabilities who use screen readers may not understand the purpose of the links and individuals with manual disabilities would not be able to use the links.
> 5. Websites and materials that were integrated into the course material were not fully accessible
etc.
It's really worth reading the whole thing, but at the very least read up to page 5.
https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
> Between March and April 2015, the Department reviewed the sixteen MOOCs then available to the public on UC BerkeleyX. None of the courses reviewed were entirely accessible. For each course reviewed, it would be difficult for an individual with a hearing, vision, or manual disability to understand the content conveyed to course participants. Examples of barriers to access found across most course content included the following:
> 1. Some videos did not have captions. As a result, the audio content in the video was inaccessible to people with hearing disabilities.
> 2. Some videos were inaccessible to people with vision disabilities for several reasons. First, many videos did not provide an alternative way to access images or visual information (e.g., graphs, charts, animations, or urls on slides), such as audio description, alternative text, PDF files, or Word documents. Second, videos containing text sometimes had poor color contrast, which made the text unreadable for those with low vision. Finally, information was sometimes conveyed using color alone (for instance, a chart or graph would differentiate information only by color), which is not accessible to individuals with vision disabilities.
> 3. Many documents were inaccessible to individuals with vision disabilities who use screen readers because the document was not formatted properly. For instance, headings were sometimes neither defined nor arranged in a logical order; page structure was not always defined, contained empty elements or was incorrectly defined; some tables did not have row and column headers defined; math equations were not always defined in a comprehendible way. Many PDFs either did not have a tag structure defined or the tag structure was incorrect. Individuals with vision disabilities who use screen readers would have a difficult time understanding and navigating the content.
> 4. Some links were not keyboard accessible and did not indicate whether they were expandable or collapsible, so individuals with vision disabilities who use screen readers may not understand the purpose of the links and individuals with manual disabilities would not be able to use the links.
> 5. Websites and materials that were integrated into the course material were not fully accessible
etc.
It's really worth reading the whole thing, but at the very least read up to page 5.
I understand that Bill Joy designed vi to work well over slow terminals because in the '70s Berkeley had a much smaller budget than, say, MIT (where emacs originated).
Taking those videos off YT will make things worse in terms of the inequality of deaf people. YT at least has an ability to automatically generate subtitle. It is not perfect, for sure, but is still better than nothing
No, YT's automatic captioning is absolute trash. It most definitely is worse than nothing.
Hi, this statement is objectively, entirely, incorrect. I assume you are talking about English. I have used YouTube's subtitles on Berkeley's lectures, and they are almost entirely correct; the errors that are present do not impede understanding. E.g. in a math lecture if a lecturer sees x with a subscript zero, and they say "x naught", YouTube captions might say "x not".
I believe it was explicitly ruled in the courts that Youtube's automated captions were not up to the standard required by the ADA. Not sure where I read that, but it was probably on HN somewhere.
Having partially-accessible content is still better than having no content at all.
The legal aspect smells like a law about fixing inequality. The inequality of >deaf people< not being able to consume this publicly funded material. Seems appropriate to me given the ADA.
https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm
> "...civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination and guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life -- to enjoy employment opportunities..."
In the mean-time could these folks simply repost the catalog to YT?
https://www.ada.gov/ada_intro.htm
> "...civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination and guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life -- to enjoy employment opportunities..."
In the mean-time could these folks simply repost the catalog to YT?
Requiring publicly funded materials to be accessible seems like a good thing. But there must be better ways to enforce it than taking down existing material that doesn't qualify. Not that I can immediately come up with one.
Change the law such that removing/ceasing/etc doesn't cure the breach of the ADA. That way Berkley has to provide closed captioned videos even if they take them down. That would remove any incentive to take them down.
You'd probably have to include some exceptions for when the expense is too great (but I'm fairly sure the ADA only requires accommodations that are reasonable).
You'd probably have to include some exceptions for when the expense is too great (but I'm fairly sure the ADA only requires accommodations that are reasonable).
Publicly-funded and created materials should also benefit from earmarked accessibility funding.
But if they do that, they can't plug their new hip blockchain in the process! /s
Isn't this like demolishing a building because it's impractical to add a wheelchair ramp to the entrance?
The best analogy would be, a grocery store tries to give away unsold (safe) meat at the end of the day, and is blocked by a law that says, if you give away meat, you have to give an equal quantity of tofu. [1]
So, it ends the giveaway. Then, volunteers steal the meat (with the store's tacit permission) and give it away for free, and this is ruled as legal.
Then we get lectured that this is a good result "because you guys need to learn the importance of accommodating vegetarians".
You object and say, "But ... this is the same as what the store was doing before, it's just that the meat is harder to find but every bit as useless to vegetarians" and you only get blank stares and lectures about "It's just that some of us care about those who can't eat meat, and aren't mindlessly obsessed with profits and cost-saving. The grocery store already makes a ton of profit anyway".
[1] Let's assume there's also a law, that the store complies with, that says "any store selling meat must also have tofu available for sale".
So, it ends the giveaway. Then, volunteers steal the meat (with the store's tacit permission) and give it away for free, and this is ruled as legal.
Then we get lectured that this is a good result "because you guys need to learn the importance of accommodating vegetarians".
You object and say, "But ... this is the same as what the store was doing before, it's just that the meat is harder to find but every bit as useless to vegetarians" and you only get blank stares and lectures about "It's just that some of us care about those who can't eat meat, and aren't mindlessly obsessed with profits and cost-saving. The grocery store already makes a ton of profit anyway".
[1] Let's assume there's also a law, that the store complies with, that says "any store selling meat must also have tofu available for sale".
I'm not sure this is the best analogy. They aren't giving away some unsold that they no longer need, they are distributing copies. I think a more apt comparison would be a if I library was lending books then they were told they couldn't lend the books without having audio books to accompany all the paper books. Without adequate funding to do this they left all the books unguarded and waited for someone to come and photocopy all the books and distribute them without audio books.
Yes. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, either.
Demolishing the building would be an expensive undertaking, and it might cripple a useful organization that needed the building to operate. That's not to say it's the wrong move, though. It's precisely that unpleasantness which creates the aversion to ignoring the ADA in the first place. Lots of people building buildings might have other uses for the space occupied by the wheelchair ramp in mind.
Demolishing the building would be an expensive undertaking, and it might cripple a useful organization that needed the building to operate. That's not to say it's the wrong move, though. It's precisely that unpleasantness which creates the aversion to ignoring the ADA in the first place. Lots of people building buildings might have other uses for the space occupied by the wheelchair ramp in mind.
Perhaps more like demolishing a building because every door has steps, and it is impractical to add 20,000 ramps.
I'm not sure what the answer is - just finding a closer analogy.
I'm not sure what the answer is - just finding a closer analogy.
More like closing a building until it chooses to spend the money to make it accessible.
Well.. This lbry, from what I gather from their "Quickstart", is a IPFS-like clone, with a hacked on blockchain cryptocurrency that you pay them to access certain content or hold names (or whatnot).
And it's being run as a business, so expect the usual monetization schemes and tricks. But yeah, lbry.io seems to be a waste of time.
https://lbry.io/quickstart/all
And it's being run as a business, so expect the usual monetization schemes and tricks. But yeah, lbry.io seems to be a waste of time.
https://lbry.io/quickstart/all
Why do you say that? What do you think would be a better solution for decentralized content distribution?
Primarily because it's a semi-proprietary protocol, with "monetization scheme", and backed by a single org. And, also, there's not much interest... If there was, then they'd dog-food and have the UI inside the protocol (like IPFS's as well).
IPFS does one thing, and does it well. And it's a protocol absent of any sort of Ethereum-like money grabbing. Not everything needs a blockchain.
IPFS does one thing, and does it well. And it's a protocol absent of any sort of Ethereum-like money grabbing. Not everything needs a blockchain.
I feel like if Berkeley had made a call to the public to ask people to close caption these for free, people would have lined up to do it. I wonder what the legal requirements were for the CC
People would have lined up to do it at the start, but would the enthusiasm last long enough to go through thousands of hours of video? Are they accurate enough? And how do you protect it against trolls deliberately doing it wrong? It's easy to catch the kid typing in four letter words, but if serious trolls put a bit of effort in, they can probably dodge most automated filters.
There's no way that would fly, given the black and white ruling. Would these same lawyers sue if you tried to crowd-source installation of an ADA-compliant wheelchair ramp? Absolutely.
Http isn't good enough anymore?
At first I thought this was a comment on httpS.
After reading, I am wondering what the hell lbry:// is, why not just serve the videos over https with html 5 like tons of other sites are doing?
Or at least explain what lbry is.
After reading, I am wondering what the hell lbry:// is, why not just serve the videos over https with html 5 like tons of other sites are doing?
Or at least explain what lbry is.
> why not just serve the videos over https with html 5 like tons of other sites are doing?
Because then they are being provided by one entity.
The LBRY protocol provides a completely decentralized network for discovering, distributing, and publishing all types of content and information, from books to movies.
Because then they are being provided by one entity.
The LBRY protocol provides a completely decentralized network for discovering, distributing, and publishing all types of content and information, from books to movies.
The page doesn't really make that clear. It just starts talking about another protocol I had never heard of before, when I was expecting videos of lessons.
It is not that it can't be understood, they just didn't set themselves up to be easily understood. It's seems like they want to plug their protocol first and share the lessons as a side effect.
It is not that it can't be understood, they just didn't set themselves up to be easily understood. It's seems like they want to plug their protocol first and share the lessons as a side effect.
From the article:
> "The LBRY protocol provides a completely decentralized network for discovering, distributing, and publishing all types of content and information, from books to movies."
https://lbry.io/faq/what-is-lbry
> "The LBRY protocol provides a completely decentralized network for discovering, distributing, and publishing all types of content and information, from books to movies."
https://lbry.io/faq/what-is-lbry
The FAQ section "Mining LBC" leaves something to be desired,
failing to ask the obvious
What proof-of-work algorithm does LBRY use?
What proof-of-work algorithm does LBRY use?
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When was HTTP ever good enough?
Taking the quality out of equality
LBRY appears to be some kind of p2p/youtube/blockchain custom protocol.
I guess this is a good marketing opportunity.
I guess this is a good marketing opportunity.
The real story here is the LRBY protocol. I don't know why everyone is talking about the ethics of the videos being removed from YouTube. Or is LRBY old news and I'm just out of the loop?
Do we also not have an obligation to dumb down these lectures to make them more understandable for people with lower IQ? Where do we draw a line as a society on who to help and who not to? I'm genuinely curious about this issue and have been and I'm not trying to insult anyone.
It's certainly not the person's fault that they got a lower IQ just as much it isn't the deaf person's fault for being deaf.
Why do we treat certain disabilities differently and not pay attention to a whole slew of other disadvantages that people might be suffering from?
Are we therefore not misguided in trying to correct these issues when we know we're not eliminating most of them and making matters slightly worse for everyone else?
Do we also not have an obligation to dumb down these lectures to make them more understandable for people with lower IQ? Where do we draw a line as a society on who to help and who not to? I'm genuinely curious about this issue and have been and I'm not trying to insult anyone.
It's certainly not the person's fault that they got a lower IQ just as much it isn't the deaf person's fault for being deaf.
Why do we treat certain disabilities differently and not pay attention to whole slew of other disadvantages that people might be suffering from?
Are we therefore not misguided in trying to correct these issues when we know we're not eliminating most of them and making matters slightly worse for everyone else?
It's certainly not the person's fault that they got a lower IQ just as much it isn't the deaf person's fault for being deaf.
Why do we treat certain disabilities differently and not pay attention to whole slew of other disadvantages that people might be suffering from?
Are we therefore not misguided in trying to correct these issues when we know we're not eliminating most of them and making matters slightly worse for everyone else?
> Berkeley removed the videos because of a lawsuit brought by two students from another university under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Wait, what happened? How does removing the videos help Americans with Disabilities?
Wait, what happened? How does removing the videos help Americans with Disabilities?
They weren't ordered to remove it, they were ordered to caption it if it's provided at all. They decided it's not worth it to provide it to everyone for free if they have to caption all their videos, so they are making it available to students only (presumably because they have compliant services available to students like interpreters for people going to the class in person).
Thank you for explaining. That makes sense.
Though ordering them to "caption them if they are provided at all" and then ending with them being removed was not a surprising side-effect. I wonder if the students who filed the suit or the judge should have expected that outcome.
Now on the other side UCB is not exactly a poor cash strapped outfit so yes they could have captioned them if they wanted.
Though ordering them to "caption them if they are provided at all" and then ending with them being removed was not a surprising side-effect. I wonder if the students who filed the suit or the judge should have expected that outcome.
Now on the other side UCB is not exactly a poor cash strapped outfit so yes they could have captioned them if they wanted.
It doesn't have to be accessible if it doesn't exist.
Didn't youtube have an auto subtitle supported by speech recognition?
It does, but the quality is fairly poor
Why not mirror on YT itself by a third party, maybe outside of the USA and keeping the license?
These don't seem to have been removed from the Berkeley youtube page yet
how much is tuition at uc berkely again? why was hiring students to caption the videos not an option?
You can't hire students to install an ADA-compliant wheelchair ramp. This is probably the same thing in the eyes of the law.
[deleted]
can we get a torrent please?
It's many many terabytes. Too big for torrents for normal people with normal sized hard drives.
I'm a bit confused...what actually happened at Berkeley that warranted this?
You are my hero!
They weren't made illegal. The lectures were inaccessible to deaf people. Given that they were created with public funds, that's not acceptable. Berkley decided to throw them away rather than remedy this, in a rather short sighted move reminiscent of cutting off one's nose to spite their face.
To those that are preserving/mirroring these lectures, I really hope you have plans to make them accessible to all, not just the hearing enabled.
To those that are preserving/mirroring these lectures, I really hope you have plans to make them accessible to all, not just the hearing enabled.
> Berkley decided to throw them away rather than remedy this, in a rather short sighted move reminiscent of cutting off one's nose to spite their face.
UC Berkeley assessed the cost of captioning those videos to ADA standards at higher than $1,000,000. Berkeley is currently running a $110 million deficit after making $60 million in budget cuts. Last month, President Trump tweeted a threat to strip the college of all federal funds, and while that's unlikely their state and federal support is certainly not going expand.
So no, they aren't cutting off their nose to spite their face. They're broke, and couldn't accommodate the lawsuit's demands without major cuts somewhere else.
UC Berkeley assessed the cost of captioning those videos to ADA standards at higher than $1,000,000. Berkeley is currently running a $110 million deficit after making $60 million in budget cuts. Last month, President Trump tweeted a threat to strip the college of all federal funds, and while that's unlikely their state and federal support is certainly not going expand.
So no, they aren't cutting off their nose to spite their face. They're broke, and couldn't accommodate the lawsuit's demands without major cuts somewhere else.
> Berkley decided to throw them away rather than remedy this, in a rather short sighted move reminiscent of cutting off one's nose to spite their face.
Making captions for these takes someone to do the work -- having worked in an office that filmed/distributed lectures before, sometimes there just isn't someone there to do the work.
I don't see why someone has to be the bad guy here. Maybe it's just the HN way to get very, very upset about little things like this?
Making captions for these takes someone to do the work -- having worked in an office that filmed/distributed lectures before, sometimes there just isn't someone there to do the work.
I don't see why someone has to be the bad guy here. Maybe it's just the HN way to get very, very upset about little things like this?
Do you expect Berkley to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have over 20,000 videos transcribed and captioned?
Assuming each video is only an hour and you paid someone minimum wage to caption them, and they were able to caption them perfectly by going through the video once, then this would cost $145,000. Realistically, a professional would have to do it and would take hours for each video.
Removing them so they don't get sued seems like the only sensible option from the university's perspective.
Assuming each video is only an hour and you paid someone minimum wage to caption them, and they were able to caption them perfectly by going through the video once, then this would cost $145,000. Realistically, a professional would have to do it and would take hours for each video.
Removing them so they don't get sued seems like the only sensible option from the university's perspective.
> Do you expect Berkley to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to have over 20,000 videos transcribed and captioned?
Since they had implemented such a policy, required staff to sign off on it, and also claimed to be compliant with such a policy, yeah, it probably should have been done.
The full report from the Justice Department is available at [1] and the claims are fairly straight-forward by the complainants; Berkley used public funds to make said videos, claimed to be compliant with their own rules and regulations regarding Accessibility, had the necessary department internally to assist with compliance to Accessibility, but neglected to enforce compliance as they were supposed to.
When the Justice Department was brought in, it was the finding of the Department that compliance would not cause "...undue administrative or financial [burden]..." on Berkley.
Berkley basically had the choice to comply as they were supposed to have been doing in the first place or remove, and they opted to remove. It is a fiscally sensible position, but this issue seems to have been a result of poor enforcement of the University's own policies and promises to Accessibility.
The report from the Justice Department, linked on Berkley's response, is fairly short and in plain language. I take the regret in Berkley's official response at face value, since I don't think this is what anyone wanted (no videos at all), but according to the report, Berkley had and continues to have the resources and expertise to do this as the content is created, instead of waiting until they have upwards of 20,000 videos queued up. It's a costly mistake, and they chose the cheaper way of fixing it.
[1]https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
Since they had implemented such a policy, required staff to sign off on it, and also claimed to be compliant with such a policy, yeah, it probably should have been done.
The full report from the Justice Department is available at [1] and the claims are fairly straight-forward by the complainants; Berkley used public funds to make said videos, claimed to be compliant with their own rules and regulations regarding Accessibility, had the necessary department internally to assist with compliance to Accessibility, but neglected to enforce compliance as they were supposed to.
When the Justice Department was brought in, it was the finding of the Department that compliance would not cause "...undue administrative or financial [burden]..." on Berkley.
Berkley basically had the choice to comply as they were supposed to have been doing in the first place or remove, and they opted to remove. It is a fiscally sensible position, but this issue seems to have been a result of poor enforcement of the University's own policies and promises to Accessibility.
The report from the Justice Department, linked on Berkley's response, is fairly short and in plain language. I take the regret in Berkley's official response at face value, since I don't think this is what anyone wanted (no videos at all), but according to the report, Berkley had and continues to have the resources and expertise to do this as the content is created, instead of waiting until they have upwards of 20,000 videos queued up. It's a costly mistake, and they chose the cheaper way of fixing it.
[1]https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2016-08...
Research is also done with public funds in a lot of universities but the research papers themselves are conveniently put in behind journal and conference paywalls. I'd say that is a much bigger problem since it affects a larger section of the population but that is apparently completely expected and accepted.
Agreed, that is a problem, and we should be working to fix the law so that doesn't happen.
The difference in this case is that the law requiring it already exists and Berkeley didn't obey it.
The difference in this case is that the law requiring it already exists and Berkeley didn't obey it.
Berkeley's initial estimate for captioning came to more than a million dollar, yeah. And the college is running a major deficit already, so you're exactly right - they didn't really have a choice even if they wanted to do captioning.
Either the videos are valuable, or they're not. They can't simultaneously not be worth the salary of one middle manager for one year and be such an important public resource that they require exceptions to the ADA.
Or rather they can to you, but for me, holding to a standard created to protect minorities is more important than that, even if in some cases it prevents majorities from not having everything they want.
Or rather they can to you, but for me, holding to a standard created to protect minorities is more important than that, even if in some cases it prevents majorities from not having everything they want.
They are very valuable to many people, but if the cost is borne by a group that acquires no benefit (UC Berkeley, which can use them for its own students for free regardless), then it is not worth that cost.
It is absolutely the case that these created more than a million dollars of value per year while they were up. But UC Berkeley, by design, captured none of that value.
It is absolutely the case that these created more than a million dollars of value per year while they were up. But UC Berkeley, by design, captured none of that value.
Exactly, you're not allowed to take public money (largely tax money from everyone) and use it to benefit a specific group. The laws were clear before Berkeley made the videos, so they should have been able to estimate the cost ahead of time. Instead they ignored they law and decided that discriminating against hearing-impaired people whose tax money helped pay for the videos was fine.
These videos already existed and are still being produced, and if you live in CA your tax dollars are being used to produce them whether or not they're made public. They're being created for Berkeley students first, made ADA-accessible as needed by the student body. Since they already exist, wouldn't Berkeley be doing a disservice to many disabled people by just keeping them private? And, because its a public school, couldn't one argue that the videos should be publicly available too?
Because taking money from disabled people and using it to help mostly not-disabled people creates second-class citizens. These videos in their current form are discriminatory.
One thing I don't understand, maybe because I'm hearing, but how is the UC Berkeley YouTube not accessible to deaf people? Doesn't YouTube have a CC feature designed to make videos accessible for the hearing impaired or just so hearing people can watch them with the sound off?
Is the suit because the lectures don't have a sign language translation for every single lecture?
Is the suit because the lectures don't have a sign language translation for every single lecture?
It's not just deaf people. It's people with hearing impairment, or with visual impairment, or with manual disability. The complainants in this case were people with hearing impairment, but the DoJ expanded the scope.
You're right that YT can auto-caption some video. The DoJ looked at the accuracy of a selection of video, and found it was rather low. That inaccuracy, coupled with the lack of reasonable adjustments for people with visual impairment or manual disability means that YTs auto-captioning isn't enough to make a video accessible.
You're right that YT can auto-caption some video. The DoJ looked at the accuracy of a selection of video, and found it was rather low. That inaccuracy, coupled with the lack of reasonable adjustments for people with visual impairment or manual disability means that YTs auto-captioning isn't enough to make a video accessible.
Okay that makes sense, sounds like someone at UC Berkley took a risk thinking that auto captioning would be enough but it isn't good enough yet.
I hope the auto captions improve over time. I feel like Facebook auto captions are already really, really good. If YouTube can reach that level of auto captioning it would benefit a lot of people.
I hope the auto captions improve over time. I feel like Facebook auto captions are already really, really good. If YouTube can reach that level of auto captioning it would benefit a lot of people.
Auto-generated captions are nearly useless for more technical topics. No one is advocating for sign language translation, but to comply with the ADA they would need to be manually Closed Captioned. 20,000 videos would be prohibitively expensive to pay for people to caption these, so they decided to take them down instead.
I think it's a shame, but if they had just captioned them as they released them, it wouldn't have been such a burden to do all 20,000 at once.
I think it's a shame, but if they had just captioned them as they released them, it wouldn't have been such a burden to do all 20,000 at once.
> Doesn't YouTube have a CC feature designed to make videos accessible for the hearing impaired or just so hearing people can watch them with the sound off?
From a previous discussion, they are not of good enough quality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13769549
From a previous discussion, they are not of good enough quality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13769549
[deleted]
This was discussed in previous threads, Youtube captioning is not (yet) good enough to meet the courts standard.
> Berkley [sic] decided to throw them away rather than remedy this, in a rather short sighted move reminiscent of cutting off one's nose to spite their face.
It's much more likely that the cost of making the lectures ADA-compliant was prohibitive. Universities aren't corporations who can appeal to equities holders/markets for funds when a need presents itself. So they did what they could ... a warning, well in advance, that the content would have to be withdrawn from public display, with the expectation that someone not subject to the ADA requirements would copy the lectures.
In the future, such content will be created already ADA-compliant, but many of these lectures predate the ADA and were created in good faith. It would have been a shame to lose them, especially when you consider that current and future computer resources can provide on-the-fly subtitles (and translations) for those who want or need them.
It's much more likely that the cost of making the lectures ADA-compliant was prohibitive. Universities aren't corporations who can appeal to equities holders/markets for funds when a need presents itself. So they did what they could ... a warning, well in advance, that the content would have to be withdrawn from public display, with the expectation that someone not subject to the ADA requirements would copy the lectures.
In the future, such content will be created already ADA-compliant, but many of these lectures predate the ADA and were created in good faith. It would have been a shame to lose them, especially when you consider that current and future computer resources can provide on-the-fly subtitles (and translations) for those who want or need them.
> In the future, such content will be created already ADA-compliant, but many of these lectures predate the ADA and were created in good faith.
The ADA is nearly 30 years old. The videos are 10 years old or so.
Berkeley had policies in place to ensure content was accessible, and it had help for creators to make sure content was accessible.
The people who created this content were responsible for self-certification. They signed documents saying they were aware of Berkeley policy, and aware of the help available to make content accessible, and they also signed to say that the content was accessible.
The ADA is nearly 30 years old. The videos are 10 years old or so.
Berkeley had policies in place to ensure content was accessible, and it had help for creators to make sure content was accessible.
The people who created this content were responsible for self-certification. They signed documents saying they were aware of Berkeley policy, and aware of the help available to make content accessible, and they also signed to say that the content was accessible.
Let's burn all books! Blind people can't read them!!
> To those that are preserving/mirroring these lectures, I really hope you have plans to make them accessible to all, not just the hearing enabled.
That would be great. And as long as money is no object, I really hope they're planning to buy everyone a puppy too.
That would be great. And as long as money is no object, I really hope they're planning to buy everyone a puppy too.
Instead of dealing with the time, energy and expense of having them captioned or the expense and frustration of ongoing legal action, they took them offline.
Isn't progress grand?
Isn't progress grand?
Are you going to spend time writing these captions?
what a mess.