Not clicking on that link and giving them my traffic. Mirror the info
They finally did it: Reddit made it impossible for blind Redditors to moderate their own sub
Since the latest “accessibility” update to the Reddit app, the amount and magnitude of new accessibility related bugs has made it virtually impossible for blind mods to operate on mobile.
We have done absolutely everything we could to work with Reddit and have given them every opportunity. When they offered to host a demo of the update, we understood how little they understand about accessibility: they did not respond to a request to use the app with screen curtain on. The only fair conclusion is that they cannot use it without sight, but expect us to.
The update introduced various regressions and new bugs. This is entirely within the expectations of the mod team, given how rushed it was and how Reddit continues to demonstrate how underprepared they are to deal with accessibility.
But what about the “accessibility apps?”
They may not work. At this time, it is impossible to log into RedReader.
They shouldn’t have to work. Reddit made a business decision to effectively remove users’ access to third-party apps and must assure that access by its own means.
What now for r/Blind?
The subreddit will continue operating under the care and stewardship of its visually impaired and sighted moderators.
Let us be clear: r/Blind cannot be moderated by blind people.
Reddit has a single path forward
As u/rumster, founder of r/Blind and a CPWA Certified Professional of Web Accessibility, told Reddit admins in our first meeting, Reddit needs to hire a CPWA. It has been patently obvious that the company does not have the know-how to address these accessibility issues, as we explained on the update on the second meeting.
To build the required internal structure and processes, and create an accessible platform, they must:
Create and fill the position of “Chief Accessibility Officer.” This role must have oversight over development as well as the ability to set internal and public Reddit policy. This person should have the ability to halt any corporate strategy or initiative within Reddit as a company and/or any feature, update, etc. to the Reddit website and/or apps until they believe the impact on accessibility for disabled redditors by said strategy, initiative, feature, update, etc. has been fully addressed, implemented, ensured, and/or mitigated. The person filling this role should have both development and managerial experience and hold at least the Certified Professional of Web Accessibility (CPWA) certification as issued by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). This person should also be disabled and an active Redditor and must coordinate communication with disabled users and their communities.
Reddit must commit to ensuring training and certification of all developers responsible for accessible and inclusive design. Lead developers must be trained and certified at least to the level of Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS) as issued by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP), but ideally should hold the “Certified Professional of Web Accessibility (CPWA).”
Fully implement an alternative text (alt text) function for photos and videos in which posters can compose descriptions for blind and visually impaired users.
Implement a closed-captioning system for videos, thus allowing deaf and deafblind Redditors full access to the audio content of videos.
Implement a single dedicated point of contact for accessibility and disability issues in the form of an email address: accessibility@reddit.com.
Ultimately and crucially, commit to comply with theWCAG at level AA and ATAG standards.
Disability is a social issue and software must be tested
As u/MostlyBlindGamer explained to Reddit admins in modmail, “disability” is an interaction between a person’s physical or mental characteristics and society’s barriers. Your website’s barriers. You are making people disabled by breaking your website and apps. Your organization’s unwillingness and/or inability to hire actual experts is what’s making people disabled. We’re not disabled, because we can’t see like you can: we’re disabled, because crunching developers, who don’t have the necessary training and experience, for a week, predictably, caused regressions. If I don’t test my code, people die. When you don’t test your code, because you don’t know how to, you make people disabled.
If Reddit Inc wants to deny service to disabled people, they must make that statement
As u/DHamlinMusic said, this update made no functional changes beyond the add/remove favorites button in the community’s list being labeled and changing state properly, yet it added dozens of new issues, made moderating significantly harder and should never have been released to start. If Reddit’s intention is to just not have disabled users on reddit come out and say it instead of pulling this landlord trying to empty a rent controlled building bullshit.
Disabled redditors will not accept being quietly whisked away, nor will the broader Reddit community. People make Reddit and people can break Reddit.
Thanks for mirroring!
Lol, this “a few weeks” thread
What a clown show.
What’s weird is that it Opened RIF when I clicked it, and showed. No clue what the hell is going on now.
I just checked and RIF is pulling posts. I’m not logged in but it’s pulling posts. Bizarre.
Agreed. I’ll continue to post and comment on here.
Fuck spez
Awful. All Spez ever did was call out developers like Christian Selig and froth about how they were making money off of him. But Apollo and other devs actually listened to their community and Apollo - for example - implemented and leveraged existing accessibility features because their product was so user focused. Reddit did nothing and have now shitcanned those apps without really caring how poor their own offering is.
Just another example of how useless and greedy current Reddit leadership is, and how staying isn’t an option unless you are ok with Reddit taking the community for granted.
Which is why we have rblind.com which is run by the old mods
Reddit. Does not. Care.
The only thing they care about is money. That’s it. reddit doesn’t care about you AT ALL
So, I was on an accessibility focused team, testing and cleaning up after the feature developers to make sure the whole product still met WCAG 2.0 to AA level. I can state with complete confidence that anyone without such a team will introduce unexpected accessibility breakage and regressions every single release, sometimes in completely untouched sections. For trivial tweaks. Screen readers are finicky, temperamental and moody beasts. Modern web toolkits do a fairly good job of being accessible out of the box, but like ChatGPT generated text, they require a bit of help sometimes.
Would not be surprised if Reddit just wants to pay lip service to accessibility. That shit costs cubic money to do right, and slows the roll of releases. Unfortunately, most advertisers on a social platform couldn’t care less.
Ah! Someone who understands!! You know what really drives me up the wall? Heading misuse! Oh yeah, let’s just put this <h4> at the top of the page before anything else. Who cares about hierarchy, anyway? It’s not like anyone uses these things, right?
Oh, and not just heading misuse, but how about the total lack of an <h1>! And the name of the site is…null! Like, how can you miss that?? JFC, even google.com doesn’t have a frickin <h1>! Aarrgh why
Finally!
Reddit. Does not. Care.
The whole Reddit issue aside, my understanding is that it’s also the case that kbin and lemmy are not really at the point where the blind can readily use and moderate the systems. I would wager that they will get there, but I think that it would be more-effective to criticize Reddit after the Fediverse is doing what Reddit is not.
Also make for better stories for the media.
I would say there’s a large difference between a corporation actively removing accessibility options a community has come to rely on, and an open source community project that is building to have all the features needed to host everyone comfortably. We don’t need to criticize reddit in the context of its alternatives, because we can validly compare it to reddit in May.
no one saw this coming
