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blueskys alt text feature has been a wonderful tool in adding to the sites lefty bona fides. would a site run by fascists even consider accessibility features? well, given that bluesky keeps deleting palestinians for no reason other than their nationality, i could believe that bluesky perhaps does not have the best intentions for its users even if its got some nice features.
i want to direct you to dr devon prices laziness does not exist. in it, dr price posits that unseen barriers can contribute to inaction and procrastination. i want to build on that a little and outline some of the reasons that most people dont use alt text.
- people dont know what to do. i know, this one sounds hard to believe, but most of us dont need alt text and therefore dont know what makes alt text effective. some people post screenshots with text and summarize the text rather than transcribe it, which from what i gather is not actually helpful. ive seen blind users say to try your best and that its better than nothing. ill say from personal experience that my alt text feels worse than it should be, and sometimes i wont even add images at all because i feel like i cant do it justice.
heres an excellent guide on using alt text.
people dont have time/forget/feel overwhelmed. i need you to at least be familiar with dr prices arguments on laziness for this one to make sense but sometimes it is true that we simply dont have the spoons. spoon theory gets thrown around like a cutesy metaphor until a disabled person says theyre out of spoons, in which case we treat them like theyre being lazy assholes on purpose.
people dont know what alt text is for. again, you have to understand that alt text has a purpose, and many people do not know what that purpose is. if you dont know why something is done, why would you go through the effort of learning how to do it? bluesky lets you know that alt text is used by low vision users and that it offers context for everyone, but i dont think people give it that much thought. maybe im making an assumption here, but i feel like the general public is mostly uneducated on how blind and low vision people navigate the world.
one persons accessibility is disabling for another. two people with the same condition will need different things at different times. i think this is pretty obvious but its worth remembering that some people might not be able to do 'basic' tasks all the time, and shaming them for being 'ableist' is in itself ableist.
these are fairly weak arguments, i think, but together they paint a greater picture of an overall ableist culture that insists on individuals making individual choices for other individuals. this was all just a warm up for my actual point.
we have privatized social justice.
whether we're talking about masking to prevent the spread of covid, wearing condoms to prevent the spread of stis, or alt text for helping low vision users, states and companies have successfully outsourced disability and health infrastructure onto individuals. the state doesnt need to provide you with a salary to stay home and wait out a pandemic if they say that some people are inevitably going to die, and that you should weigh your risk factors against the benefits of not starving to death. the state doesnt need to invest in hiv research if they moralize the pandemic and turn it into the ungodly sodomites rightfully reaping the rewards of a sinful existence.
bluesky doesnt need to do anything for its low vision/blind users because its got millions of users providing free labor for them. this is perhaps a perfect case use for llms and 'ai' but instead, bluesky is perfectly okay with leaving the alt text feature underdeveloped and user run. this way, they get the credit for having the option for alt text while also not doing jack shit for its disabled users. the people who actually provide the accessibility are other users yet we dont have a say in how the company is run, nor do we receive its profits. we collectively take on the labor for no say in how the company operates.
a lot of rhetoric around disability justice revolves around what individuals can do for other individuals rather than engaging in collective struggle to improve conditions for everyone. a tired minimum wage worker forgetting to put alt text on a picture should not make you angrier than the fact that a site with the resources to do so does not automatically generate alt text on every image. but as we've seen with aids and covid, we're on our own, and thats turned into a matter of fact rather than something we need to fight against. we do not all have the same ability or access to resources which is why this model of privatized social justice weakens everyone. it doesnt help disabled users, and even perfect adherence from the user base only benefits blueskys dickhead shareholders who are more than happy to ban vulnerable people from their site.
a lot of discussion on disability rights online revolves around what individual disabled people need, such as the right to violate picket lines and boycotts. i would argue most workers are or will become disabled and that disability is not some abstract thing that only hurts rich white privileged people. whenever i get sick i think of susan sontags metaphorical dual citizenship to the lands of wellbeing and sickness. disability is not an abstract identity but a concrete reality for every single person alive. if you are not affected by disability, you are dead. sickness and injury are fundamental realities to human existence and can strike at any moment no matter how much you work out or how many horse dewormer pills you take.
to focus only on the individual needs of a select few disabled people is inherently reactionary because everyone will get sick and disabled. the fight for communism is a fight for disability--from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. and one does not build a society by enforcing a strict individualist culture where one is responsible to all and beholden to none. i find it ironic that people will say communism cant work because of human nature, but that couldnt be further from the truth; if anything, human beings are inherently social animals. humans have taken care of disabled people since even before homo sapiens. our fundamental core feature as a species is our communal and social nature. to be human is to care for others.
my best proof for this is how people on bluesky are so adamant about using alt text to begin with. despite being unsure of how it works, despite being low on spoons, despite not knowing what its for, despite absolutely everything, we take the effort to care for others because other people are important to us. this is not about shaming those who shame people for not using alt text but about redirecting that frustration towards a more effective form of activism. its not that we're lazy or careless--we as individuals cant get very far alone. we need each other and we clearly want to be there for others.
reject the privatization of social justice. demand more from governments and companies.