Legislation To Make Web Devices Accessible To Disabled Users 274
pgmrdlm writes "In an effort to make web devices accessible to the disabled, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (H.R. 3101), submitted by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 348 to 23. The related Senate bill has been introduced by Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR). Quoting Representative Markey's website: 'We've moved from Braille to Broadcast, from Broadband to the Blackberry. We've moved from spelling letters in someone's palm to the Palm Pilot. And we must make all of these devices accessible.' The Washington Post coverage notes, 'Some broadcasters put videos on the Internet with captions, but not all. That can make inaccessible everything from the political videos that are now common on the Web to pop culture clips that turn viral.' As someone who has 20/200 vision with my glasses on, I completely agree that the web has not been kind to individuals with various disabilities. But due to the size of the web, and the large number of different devices that access it, is it even possible to legislate something of this nature? Or should we rely on education and peer pressure on the various manufacturers?"
Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
How accessible is sufficient? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see: www.govtrack.us is not accessible. markey.house.gov is Joomla, ugh, definitely not accessible. How about showing the rest of us how it should be done [...]
Thumb up on this one.
[...] before heaping yet another economy-destroying law on the productive class?
Thumbs and all the other fingers down on this one. What makes you believe that people with vision deficiency are non-productive?
This sort of inanity... (Score:4, Insightful)
This sort of inanity is comical, pointless, impossible, and laughable.
This is akin to mandating braille on the Mona Lisa.
The more nefarious thing is that such actions (like requiring closed-captioning on new shows online) can serve as an impediment to the publication of creative works (for fear of ADA-style lawsuits). Restrictions on presentation could also lead to limitations on new online presentation techniques.
It's not like these things (like alt text) weren't already considered. Force all government agencies (as means of public access) to adopt these rules for their websites, but major search providers (and places like YouTube) are *way* ahead of the government on this one. Unlike quite a few other places that needed a nudge from the government, the private sector has already recognized the market value of serving impaired users.
Specific restrictions are almost always going to lead to undesired side-effects. Chevy Volt drivers can't use HOV2 lanes solo but Toyota Prius drivers can? Whoops. Corn subsidies lead to a fatter nation? Sorry about that. HMO-friendly regs? Yeah, about that...
Legislators are notoriously bad at actually knowing the details of the problem. Letting them call for specific remedies to perceived problems is perilous. Start small, with government sites, and see if we can merely catch up to the accessibility practices of leading internet companies.
Lots of problems... (Score:3, Insightful)
The wish behind this is excellent, but the law had better be carefully drafted. For example, you could mandate that all videos should have subtitles or closed captions. Which, with respect to major broadcasters, would be reasonable. But are you going to force this onto everybody who posts a home video? Obviously not (I think). But now how do you draw the line between home videos, small semi-professional videos, and full-blown broadcasters? And is this likely to produce a de-facto censorship of overseas broadcasters.
Why do you have to make all devices accessible? Does, for example, a waterproof phone designed for surfers/canoeists have to have features for the blind? While not saying the blind cannot surf, the population of blind surfers is pretty small, and they do not really need access to what seems at first glance a trivial gadget. The blind must not be locked off the Web - but they don't need it while canoeing.
Put it the other way, do you have to make all web devices available to the non-disabled? Am I required to make a braille web-interpreter (a device) accessible to the sighted but braille-impaired?
Will this effectively ban ultra-low-power long battery life devices which, for example, don't have speaker-phones and use e-paper without back lights, which are harder for this with impaired vision to use?
So, while I applaud the idea, I fear the detail.
Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wonderful! Now Markey can show that he cares by spending other people's money and imposing time-consuming, expensive regulations on all of us.
What's the point of requiring *all* VoIP phones to be hearing-aid compatible? It'll just make all phones more expensive for everyone, including those of us who don't need have hearing aids! It's not insensitive, it's just common sense; we don't mandate that all books be written in 20pt, we just allow publishers to sell both regular-print and large-print books! There are currently cheap VoIP phones that are not compatible with hearing aids and slightly more expensive VoIP phones that are. And it works just fine this way, the deaf can just use some of the $10 million that Markey wants to give them to purchase fancier phones!
The same applies to screen readers for mobile devices. Some are already available, what about the radical notion that those who benefit from them should purchase them with their own money? Not everyone who is blind is poor and helpless and so destitute as to not be able to afford the spend $300 on software that, according to Markey, is indispensable to live a fulfilling life. And if these politicians feel generous, they should just donate a portion of their income to organizations that help the blind. They're wealthy enough that don't have to stick taxpayers with the bill when they're feeling generous.
Re:How accessible is sufficient? (Score:3, Insightful)
They can look to prior precedent to determine how far exactly that is.
Sounds like a great deal for accessibility consultants and lawyers!
Pay us to help make you compliant, or pay your lawyers to try to prove your innocence. Or, most likely, do both...
Re:Lameness filter (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent has an important point - accessibility is a two-pronged approach. Sometimes, it's appropriate to modify the world (Wheelchair Ramps, disabled bathrooms) and sometimes it's appropriate to rely on technology to help individual people (White canes, seeing-eye dogs). Mostly, they meet in the middle somewhere (hearing aid loops in cinemas are much less invasive than subtitling, and service most people with hearing difficulties). I think it's important not to get too carried away and actively hinder the lives of everyone in service of some token PC gesture that never gets used. Specifically, my office has retrofitted electric push-button door openers, which take several seconds per set of door on a very long corridor in a working environment fundamentally unsuited for wheelchair accessibility.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not the government's job to create laws that enable people to 'be productive' or 'give back to the community'. If that were the case, they should be creating laws that force people to work, and allow our corporate overlords to control 100% of our spending, just to be certain we are being productive with our money. Should you not have access to clean water, simply because you post on /. when you should be working and giving back?* For that matter, someone who is dead can not complain, should the government spend any money on a trial for a murderer; or should the murderer just be allowed to go free, so they can work and give back?
The government makes laws that, ideally, allow people to start on an equal footing and to prevent discrimination. The ADA has been used to say that a business open to the public can not say 'no wheelchairs', even by simply not providing a ramp, any more than they can say 'no blacks'. Now, we get to net devices. Computers have had the ability to display to braille pads, and make use of other devices, that allow it's user to make use of what senses and abilities they have. New devices are locking everything out, hiding behind the DMCA and 'OMG, piracy, think of the children' to prevent the owner of the device from making use of it if their needs are different. Manufacturers are quite capable of missing something simple, like audio cues for on screen text menus or white on blue text for the same menus. If it takes a law to get that changed, instead of just social pressure and an 'unexploited market', then fine by me. It will be unenforced, same as every other law on the books.
*: friendly jab at your username.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:3, Insightful)
As for economic destruction, check out "deadweight loss" and "broken windows fallacy" for reasons why government spending is not a panacea. Increased IT spending based on regulatory requirements necessarily means that the money that would have been spent on something that would build the core business is used to deal with regulation instead. Now, this might have sufficient societal benefit to be worth it, or it might not - but you have to look at costs, too.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:4, Insightful)
His argument was pretty straightforward, and can be restated this way: every cost that is not intrinsic to the core business (especially, as was noted, in a time of general economic distress) necessarily reduces the overall viability of the business. If catering to those with disabilities were profitable to companies, they would already be doing it. Since they are not already doing it, we must conclude that either (a) it is not profitable and is, therefore, economic destruction or (b) an unrealized gold mine.
For some company C, I'm sure that it will be (b) after they do some extensive capital improvements (just like the development of most real gold mines); for most companies, this will be a sinkhole.
And yes, the same logic applies to the ADA. Yes, I think it is neat-o that ramps, door widths, and the like allow those with reduced mobility to access pretty much any place they want. Perhaps the blossoming of such is a sign of a moral and considerate society. But bringing it about via coercion and then pretending that kindness and brotherly love are overflowing at the city gates is a bit rich.
Re:This sort of inanity... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm honestly quite for accessibility measures (US paper currency should be illegal), but mandatory measures (like closed-captioning restrictions) on web presentation are too specific. There's a huge difference between government measures (and physical access requirements) and forced requirements on private websites.
I'm typically the first to say that we need to be more considerate of impaired users (I'm generally the first coder in my group to give a damn), but I see great risk in legislating accessibility remedies.
And, yes, the US could learn more than a few lessons from Europe when it comes to accommodation of impaired users.
Re:This is why egalitarianism is the enemy of free (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, fine, I don't know which has a higher data rate, but if you say it's Braille, that's good enough for me. The input to a Braille reader or a text-to-speech reader is the same, letters (hrm, what do the blind do in iconographic locales?).
So, defeating DRM is sufficient in both cases to make a commercial product. DRM can only exist when Government threatens violent action against those who would circumvent it. Remove the threat and DRM-defeats appear on the market.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice way to squelch freedom of expression... (Score:4, Insightful)
Require that all forms of public expression be accessible to the blind, deaf, and otherwise impaired, and you raise the cost of entry of doing such to the point that most people won't find it practical any more. How many youtube videos would disappear if their creator had to caption them? How many web pages would go away if they had to be accessible to the blind?
Re:Zero sum game (Score:3, Insightful)