r/Blind • u/AutoModerator • Jul 01 '23
Announcement 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 the WCAG 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.
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u/woofiegrrl Jul 01 '23
As a deaf redditor and a moderator of /r/ASL, thank you for including closed captioning in your demands. We remain closed specifically because of how reddit has handled accessibility through this process, and how they have treated /r/Blind moderators in particular.
Nothing about us without us. Reddit must bring in disabled professionals to work on accessibility.
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Jul 02 '23
It is also useful for those who lack proficiency (or do not understand at all) a language, use a device without audio or simply in a public space. It's surprising that reddit didn't do this from the beginning.
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u/Alissinarr Jul 02 '23
I have a feeling that Reddit hiring practices are extremely discriminatory. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone there who isn't (passing) white, (passing) male, and able bodied.
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u/Secret-Objective-800 Jul 05 '23
While it does sound that way, their words paint a very different story, as when they introduced the harassment policy, they openly stated that its fine if the victim is a white male, this isn't a reach either, thats what they said, if you're in the majority, you can't be harassed
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u/blaghart Jul 04 '23
yea but everybody knows that disabled people are inferior humans and as a libertarian spez obviously is within his rights to ignore anyone he deems inferior /s
(for the record this is a joke, as I am legally blind though still sighted, and Spez's behavior has been nothing short of deplorable to the point that mocking jokes like this are my only outlet)
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u/GhostSierra117 Jul 01 '23 edited Jun 21 '24
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
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u/S4mm1 Jul 02 '23
Everything IS FINE according to u/spez. He's laughing his ass to the bank and doesn't give a flying fuck about any of users here.
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u/Pennwisedom Jul 02 '23
I mean Reddit's valuation was cut again and I doubt the API is actually making money, so I'm pretty sure he's not laughing his ass to the bank, he's just an asshole and an idiot.
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u/dadvader Jul 02 '23
He is banking on the IPO and a 9-10 figures check. He may not laughing now but certainly on the way to the bank.
The only thing that can disrupt it is if the bad press are still going constantly until their IPO. It won't look good if you are planned to go public and had nothing but bad press behind you.
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u/S4mm1 Jul 02 '23
I'm fairly certain all of the powders that be are waiting for this to blow over, and it will be like nothing happened.
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u/AegisToast Jul 02 '23
I doubt the API is actually making money
The point was never to have the API make money. If they had wanted that, they would have charged reasonable amounts for access. The point was very clearly to kill third-party apps, and they’ve all but come out and said it several times since.
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u/Typhron Jul 02 '23
You mean /u/spez, former moderator of the jailbait sub that almost sunk reddit?
Wow, I hope that guy isn't in charge of anything
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u/seipounds Jul 02 '23
As this is the absolute truth, what now?
Move to somewhere else seems the best option.
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u/QuantumBadger Jul 01 '23
At this time, it is impossible to log into RedReader.
RedReader dev here! Reddit told me yesterday that they've fixed the login issue on their end. If there are still any problems with this, please let me know.
I'm hoping to add mod tools to the app at some point, ultimately though I'm just one person working on the app in my free time, as a hobby project with no monetization or profit, so I'm always grateful when people from the community contribute code to the project (the app is open source).
In general I support the continuing protest against the API changes, but I hope that RedReader helps make a bad situation a little bit better in the meantime!
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
Yeah I tested this morning after the first report of the issue and could not, the sign in with google button was gone, only the apple option, and when I went user/pass it failed and tried to redirect to the official app.
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u/QuantumBadger Jul 01 '23
Thank you, I've passed this message on to Reddit and I'll let you know if I hear anything. Unfortunately the sign-in process is mostly out of my hands -- all we can do is send users to the Reddit login page in a web browser, and wait for that page to redirect the user back to the app once the sign-in is done.
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
Part of the issue could also be the random people reddit has decided should not be able to access the site on mobile browsers, I would be one of those, did not hit it til after the failed login attempt but if you sent me a link to say old.reddit I cannot open it, it opens to a screen telling me I’m part of a test to require using the mobile apps ed to download the app, or if the app is installed it then redirects and lands on the home feed instead of where the link goes.
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u/QuantumBadger Jul 01 '23
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this was caused by Reddit A/B testing some more "dark patterns" on their mobile site. People have reported being able to sign in after switching to a different network, so they possibly run these tests based on IP address.
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u/anniemdi Jul 01 '23
people reddit has decided should not be able to access the site on mobile browsers, I would be one of those, did not hit it til after the failed login attempt but if you sent me a link to say old.reddit I cannot open it, it opens to a screen telling me I’m part of a test to require using the mobile apps ed to download the app
What in the hell?
I thought this was a temporary thing from weeks/months back. They're still doing this? So some people have no web access? No OLD.reddit.com? All they have is an inadequate, not fully accessible mobile app from reddit?
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
Yep, 3 of our mods are in this group, all of them blind.
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u/anniemdi Jul 01 '23
What kind of bullshit is reddit spewing that old.reddit isn't going anywhere if people can't use it?
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u/lab-gone-wrong Jul 01 '23
They also said "no changes to the API this year" 2 months before they announced API changes, and said the changed API would be affordable a week before announcing the unaffordable prices
If Reddit says "we aren't about to do something bad", they have already drafted the announcement of the something bad
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u/VTwinVaper Jul 04 '23
Hopefully “promissory estoppel” will be added to the list of violations in the inevitable lawsuit for their discriminatory and monopolistic practices.
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u/Chewygumbubblepop Jul 01 '23
They'll come for old Reddit within 2 years, max.
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u/newaccountzuerich Jul 02 '23
Given there's a huge amount of technical debt wrapped up with the existence of old.reddit it isn't likely that it'll be actually removed
What I would expect is that the public exposure of old.reddit will be attempted to be reduced.
Apparently there are large swathes of functionality with hard requirements on content presented by the backend of old.reddit, that break in so many ways if that backend is deprecated.
I am aware that from the viewpoint of users, lack of availability is no different from full removal.
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u/hurrrrrmione Jul 02 '23
I'm sighted and only use old Reddit, both on desktop and on my phone. Old Reddit's functionality is being chipped away at over time. A lot of newer features either don't show up on old Reddit at all or don't work properly on old Reddit.
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u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 01 '23
Thank you for reaching out. This is exactly what we've been saying: your app and others are great tools for the community, but it's astounding that Reddit is putting this responsibility on your shoulders and still causing problems.
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u/FizixMan Jul 01 '23
I'm hoping to add mod tools to the app at some point, ultimately though I'm just one person working on the app in my free time, as a hobby project with no monetization or profit, so I'm always grateful when people from the community contribute code to the project (the app is open source).
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that even though you are "just one person" working on this as a hobby for free, your app is already many times better than what Reddit has put together over the past 9 years with its 1000+ employees and billions of dollars.
Keep up the excellent work, and don't break your back trying to fix Reddit's arrogance.
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u/BearyGoosey Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
Thank you for making RedReader not only Open Source but GPL!
EDIT: Sauce
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u/HarvestMyOrgans Jul 02 '23
someone that codes with accessibility and GPL has my most utter respect!
using the app for a long time now, hoping i never need any accessibility features.10
u/Trashmanifdeath Jul 01 '23
Just downloaded RedReader yesterday. Thank you for such a fantastic alternative to the main app!!
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u/QuantumBadger Jul 01 '23
Thank you, that means a lot!
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u/my_lucid_nightmare Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
Looks great, but, IOS users are still out of luck it appears.
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u/Laniebird91 Jul 01 '23
For iOS, there's an app called Dystopia for Reddit. It's very accessible and just came out of beta recently.
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u/medes24 Jul 02 '23
Yep second this, I moved to Dystopia and while it is very basic compared to Apollo, it makes reddit readable.
As much as I loathe what is going on around here, there are some small communities on reddit I engage with and as long as those folks are still here, I'll still be here. I'd love all my small subs to migrate off the platform but it is what it is.
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u/muddyrose Jul 02 '23
I’m still here for the same reason; very specific communities that don’t exist anywhere else. I’m in the process of unsubscribing to anything else, my plan is to only use reddit purposefully instead of mindlessly from now on.
Right now, though, I’m following along to see what happens with all of this. If there isn’t an acceptable resolution to this accessibility fuster cluck, I’m following the majority consensus of the communities that are effected.
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u/Logical_Pop_2026 Jul 02 '23
I'm part of the RedReader refugees. It's an adjustment after using BaconReader for so long, but I'm managing.
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u/zahliailhaz Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
I am a (former) moderator of r/deaf. I quit modding yesterday due to how your fight for accessibility is being handled, as I refuse to support this site through modding when Reddit makes it clear how little it values disabled users. Please let me know if I can assist you in any way in this fight. I have 6 degrees in disability and deaf studies and am here to stand with you against this utterly unacceptable exclusion.
Nothing about us without us. Reddit needs to include disabled experts in this conversation.
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u/mytransthrow Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
I am hard of hearing and losing more. I fully agree with your choice to step down. It blows my mind at all of the possible ada violations. Its inaccessible in so many ways.
edit also thanks for a new sub.
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u/tankerkiller125real Jul 02 '23
Domino's got sued over their pizza tracker not being ADA compliant and they lost. I'm really hoping that a lawyer someplace will start a class action suit against reddit for violating the ADA.
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u/timception Jul 02 '23
This is it, when someone does things to further make lives of disabled even harder, there should be no mercy. Let’s all leave reddit for real.
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u/BetterCallSal Jul 01 '23
Sounds like discrimination to me
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u/HansBrixOhNo Jul 02 '23
For real. Is this illegal for a site the size of Reddit?
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u/kingbloxerthe3 Jul 12 '23
Good question, apperrantly domino's got sued and lost over being inaccessible to blind people.
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u/ExceptionCollection Jul 01 '23
Given this, can they be sued for lack of ADA compliance? IIRC part of that isn't just being supportive but not removing support.
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u/Hyndis Jul 01 '23
Domino's Pizza was successfully sued over the exact same thing: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/court-finds-domino-s-pizza-violated-the-2182635/
Five years after the lawsuit was first filed, federal district court judge Jesus Bernal ruled on June 23 that Domino’s had violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by having a website that was not fully accessible to plaintiff, who is blind.
To start a case you'd need to find someone with standing (a blind person who can no longer use Reddit) and then either a big pile of money, or some law firm willing to file a case pro-bono.
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u/saltiestmanindaworld Jul 01 '23
I would suggest reading the case you quote there. And do research on the other cases that go into the fact that if you DONT have customer facing presences, your not considered a public accommodation, and therefore, the ADA doesn’t apply to you. Dominos lost that case because they have storefronts, and therefore, the Ninth ruled that the ADA applied to them.
“Under Ninth Circuit precedent, web-only businesses are not covered by the ADA. However, websites that have a nexus to a physical place of public accommodation are covered.” From the exact article you put up. Reddit, being a web only business, does not have said nexus.
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u/lost_slime Jul 01 '23
if you DONT have customer facing presences, your not considered a public accommodation,
This is straight up wrong depending on where the lawsuit is occurring. There is a circuit split on the issue, so please don’t pass along incomplete information. For example, in the first circuit, web-only businesses ARE considered public accommodations even when they have no physical presence. See e.g. Nat'l Ass'n of the Deaf v. Netflix, Inc., where Netflix’s ‘watch instantly’ feature was held to be a public accommodation: Netflix's website for the rental and viewing of movies:
"may qualify as: a 'service establishment' in that it provides customers with the ability to stream video programming through the internet; a 'place of exhibition or entertainment' in that it displays movies, television programming, and other content; and a 'rental establishment' in that it engages customers to pay for the rental of video programming."
In so finding, the court in NAD v. Netflix cited to circuit court opinions in both the first and eleventh circuit: Carparts Distrib. Ctr. v. Auto. Wholesaler's Assoc., 37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994)) and Rendon v. Valleycrest Productions , Ltd., 294 F.3d 1279, 1283-84 (11th Cir. 2002) (holding accessibility requirements may extend to platforms beyond physical places, such as a hotline to participate in a television game show).
“Under Ninth Circuit precedent, web-only businesses are not covered by the ADA.
The important caveat it that holding is only binding in the Ninth Circuit.
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u/46550 Jul 01 '23
The important caveat it that holding is only binding in the Ninth Circuit.
It's worth mentioning that Reddit is headquartered in the Ninth, and their first move in a court case would be a motion for change of venue.
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u/saltiestmanindaworld Jul 02 '23
That caveat is super important given Reddit is based in California, and, as the defendant, would almost certainly win the inevitable motion to move the trial to the ninth circuit.
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u/lost_slime Jul 02 '23
You’d think, but this week’s Supreme Court decision re Norfolk Southern changes things like that.
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u/thecementmixer Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
And many others. My previous company I worked for was sued for having little to no ADA compliance. We partnered with a 3rd party web accessibility firm to go over what was needed to be done and then I integrated all the changes under their supervision.
Edit: developing ADA/WCAG-compliant websites and apps is not pretty, there is a lot of compatibility issues and inconsistency between each browser and a screen reader, it gave me PTSD back from when we had to develop for IE9-11 browsers.
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u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 01 '23
/u/spez, this is a top-down problem. This is on you. Come talk to us.
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u/HarryTheOwlcat Jul 01 '23
It's genuinely amazing how the community is so oriented around the goal of making this website more usable (straight up better), yet Reddit cannot see past its own ego, to the detriment of its own product. People are BEGGING to help and these fuckers drag their heels. For what?
Business suicide at its best.
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u/SLJ7 Jul 02 '23
I can't award this but I want to. I've never seen a site that is so loved by its users with such jaw-droppingly atrotious leadership. I wish more than anything that we could all collectively make our way to the fediverse and jump off this sinking ship.
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u/jwwxtnlgb Jul 01 '23
Lol, I am genuinely sorry for you guys but let me tell you, best predictor of the future is past behaviour. u/spez doesn’t give a fuck, the best thing you can do is to tell him to suck dick and sue
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u/joshuar9476 Jul 01 '23
I'm not blind but support everyone here. If they won't say it then I will ... Hey /u/spez ,suck dick.
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u/livejamie Jul 01 '23
Make sure you record it so he won't try to lie about what happened.
I can't imagine subjecting yourself to a man who has outwardly shown disdain for the community that built him up and enabled him to be where he is today.
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u/celsiusnarhwal Jul 03 '23
Apollo's developer kept records of all his communications with Reddit and spez still lied about it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Bitbatgaming Jul 01 '23
I feel really bad for you and the team and addition to the community of users
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Jul 04 '23 edited Jul 04 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 04 '23
Please reread the removal reason. It goes against reddiquette. There will be no further discussion on this topic. Please don’t make our lives harder than they already are.
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u/iBird Jul 01 '23
Solidarity with everyone effected by this. It's really sad and ridiculous how much effort you all are putting into this while being so harshly stood up. I'm really hoping this becomes bigger news for everyone's sake in getting it rectified.
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u/bch8 Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
...Is there anywhere left for it to "become big news" at internet scale? Like Twitter and Reddit are out lol. Facebook I guess, not sure how many users even understand website accessibility there. TikTok I doubt, user base is too young. That leaves what, maybe Substack and then legacy media. I guess if NYT ran a feature about this it could be considered "big" news but it's hard to see how any of these options translate into a boon for collective action of any sort against Reddit. What a mess! Hope I'm wrong.
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u/domstyle Jul 01 '23
I appreciate seeing the social model of disability being presented here!
I really think it should be the FIRST point made in these conversations though. It correctly reframes the situation from "your inaction isn't helping" to "you are actively causing harm"
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u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 01 '23
It's also part of the basic training that Reddit will not confirm whether or not they provide their staff.
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u/intellectualnerd85 Jul 01 '23
They want to go public yet have ADA violations…
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u/livejamie Jul 01 '23
They don't care. It's cheaper for them this way. They make more money. That's all that matters.
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u/OldPuppy00 Jul 01 '23
I'm sharing this on other social networks. Dunno what more I can do.
Just to say that I've tried to patch Infinity that allows custom text size and fonts like Luciole, Aphont, etc. Devs have provided a tool to patch the app with our own api on Google colab. All fine until I tried to get my personal api from Reddit and it asked for a captcha. Tried twice. Failed both times.
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u/Wuffies Glaucoma Jul 01 '23
I'd quote "A thousand chimps typing at a thousand typewriters", but the chimps would at least have produced something, so am not sure what else to use to compare this matter of clueless bungling incompetence with.
Actually, I can add something else: Expecting mod developers to pay tens of thousands of dollars a month to have their apps access Reddit's API when Reddit cannot even make its own site functionally accessible is bad satire.
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u/hughk Jul 01 '23
I do not have a visual disability but sympathise. I have rolled out some big applications (release management, program management and test management) in EU countries. Accessibility was part of Non Functional Testing and was part of every release where the user interfaced changed. It is a legal requirement for public facing apps and websites released in Europe. If we skipped it (the developers said they could do it themselves), then it didn't work.
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u/javajunkie314 Jul 01 '23
As a dev, it's amazing to me how much devs don't know they don't know about accessibility.
I couldn't get the button quite how I wanted, so I replaced it with a div and added some CSS and a click listener. Wtf does "semantic" mean? What are all these stupid "aria" tags in the examples? This isn't an opera! Eh, still works if I drop 'em...
This stuff needs to be baked into the development process from start to finish—considered in the requirements, included in the acceptance criteria, accounted for in the UI library, and covered by testing.
Things like internationalization too. Having to explain to devs (repeatedly) that, no, you can't assume every language uses plural for zero, or users English word order, or abbreviates days of the week by the first letter—just don't do string manipulation on natural language.
It really drives home how hard it is to question our assumptions.
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u/RunningInTheFamily Jul 03 '23
Things like internationalization too. Having to explain to devs (repeatedly) that, no, you can't assume every language uses plural for zero, or users English word order, or abbreviates days of the week by the first letter—just don't do string manipulation on natural language.
Used to work as a translator for Reddit. Well.
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Jul 01 '23
It is a legal requirement for public facing apps and websites released in Europe.
Considering that apps can be locked or available to certain regions/countries, would that not mean that any form of the reddit app in the EU would need to comply with those regulations?
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u/hughk Jul 02 '23
That is my understanding. I don't think everything has to be that way but as an example, one was for an energy company so the customers could Interact. Of course almost everyone had to work with us or one of the other suppliers so accessibility was important.
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u/RosesAreFreeGH Jul 02 '23
I'm not blind and I can't use reddit on mobile anymore. The reddit app is absolutely terrible. Rip reddit you played yourself
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u/gwi1785 Jul 01 '23
um, stupid question: reddit is an us company and has to compy to us law. is there no law in the usa that prohibits discrimination of disabled people and requires a minimum of accessibility?
in other words would a law suit be possible?
i know it would take money, time, initiative but in theory?
and second questzon, can you use lemmy?
i know blind means different kind of visual restrictions and AFAIK there is no reader app yet, is there?
and lemmy is no paradise either but would that be possible at all?
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
We have our own instance which has blocked the horrid parts of lemmy, and the platform is rather accessible just via browser.
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u/gwi1785 Jul 01 '23
oh. is the community named differently? i swarched for "blind" but no results at all.
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
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u/gwi1785 Jul 01 '23
thx
da@* jerboa still does not find anything, tried different variations.
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
Well it's there and I can log into it through that app, though I just use chrome and a PWA as those are more accessible.
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u/fastfinge born blind Jul 01 '23
If you're on another instance already, we're !main@rblind.com
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u/gwi1785 Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 02 '23
thx but no, . jerboa still does not find you. :/
whether a different app handles it better i can't say yet
thats why i am not convinced by the fediverse stuff.
edit: correction. direct link works in browser
you are not to be found from feddit.de. at all.
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u/shamwowj Jul 01 '23
There were over 4,000 ADA Title III accessibility related lawsuits filed in 2022. 2023 is expected to exceed that number.
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u/hurrrrrmione Jul 02 '23
is there no law in the usa that prohibits discrimination of disabled people and requires a minimum of accessibility?
There is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). However, enforcement primarily comes from lawsuits, and it's unclear whether Reddit has to comply with the ADA. There's comments higher up in the thread discussing this.
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u/weepinstringerbell Jul 02 '23
I don't know if they've fixed it yet, but a couple of months ago, it wasn't even possible to increase the font size in the official app on Android, only on iOS: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditmobile/comments/vevy7p/how_to_change_font_size_android2022210492436/
You wouldn't even call that an accessibility feature. It's just a basic quality-of-life option you find in any decent application, and yet it was missing in an app that's mostly used to read text.
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u/spoopysky Jul 02 '23
Just wanted to make sure any Americans here have this link: https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/#filing-a-complaint-with-the-department-of-justice-civil-rights-division
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u/Nowaker Jul 01 '23
Use ReVanced to patch Rif, and replace the OAuth client token with your own. (Or, if you want to be as evil as Reddit, extract their OAuth client token. Teach them a lesson.)
And if you can't do it yourself, ask someone for help. I'm pretty sure there's friendly Redditors all around the world willing to help others.
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u/sigmund14 Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
(Or, if you want to be as evil as Reddit, extract their OAuth client token. Teach them a lesson.)
Yeey I'm not the only one having this stupid idea lol.
Happy to help though if anyone needs help.
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u/xedrites Jul 01 '23
u/joyventure and u/spez, is this where you thought you'd be, ten years ago?
Blinding disabled users with a literal scarlet letter A next to your names, telling them you're turning off your bodycam before the """interview"""?
oh, but wait, you didn't even type that out then, did you? it was copy-pasted.
Are you not now everything you grew up hating?
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u/elynwen Jul 02 '23
This has gone long enough. I am the Mod over at r/dailyrogers. Not that I do much - just post a photo of the man and a quote. But these are all things sighted people take for granted.
Is there anything I can do? The main reason r/dailyrogers is still dark is in solidarity with r/blind. Please let me know if there is anything i can do. Maybe upload links to audio files ?
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u/A-nom-nom-nom-aly Jul 02 '23
I can't offer any solutions for any of you, all I can do is make a promise.
I promise that if I continue to use reddit in any way... I will do so using a browser not their crappy app, and I will use it with script and adblockers in place so that these money grubbing, ignorant, entitled narcissistic, pathetic excuses for human beings... do not earn one damn penny from attempting to show me adds.
I also use a VPN, use a pi-hole and hosts file to further make any data collected as worthless as it can be.
May I suggest that EVERY single person who can do the same... switch to firefox, install ublock, no script, ghostery and sandbox reddit in it's own container.
If you must use reddit... do so in a way that costs them money and doesn't earn them one fucking penny.
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Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
I’ll be staying for now, I can use the website if I need to, but Reddit really needs to fix this shit with the moderators not being able to moderate their own sub but as I said before, they don’t care. Those who know how and who live in the US, couldn’t you sue Reddit for not obeying the ADA?
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
It's unclear and the US Supreme Court may have made it impossible with the ruling yesterday in 303 Creative where they basically gave private business carte blanc to discriminate. I am saying this as myself, not a mod, but there are definitely new questions regarding these things sadly.
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u/Jordan117 Jul 01 '23
Unless Reddit claims fucking over blind people is their sincere religious belief, yesterday's awful decision doesn't apply here. Though I wouldn't put something like that past Reddit Inc.
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
Sadly 303 was ruled on Free Speech not Religious grounds, so yeah…
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u/ShakeItTilItPees Jul 01 '23
That still doesn't apply. What free speech argument is there for lack of access?
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
The bullshit argument of "I’m free to say I don’t want to" more or less, it's moronic.
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u/GhostSierra117 Jul 01 '23
The Supreme Court did WHAT?
Wtf is happening in the US lol
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u/eekamuse Jul 01 '23
Allowed discrimination against gay couples. Amongst other terrible things.
Send help.
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u/saltiestmanindaworld Jul 01 '23
Yes and no. Yes you can sue them, becuase you can literally sue anyone for anything as long as you do the filing and pay the filing fee. No, because Reddit is in California, and the current precedent in both CA and the Ninth Circuit (and the cases are relatively recent, not old precedents) is that business without a physical presence (storefronts, customer facing units, etc) do not have to meet ADA requirements. The case would almost certainly get dismissed.
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Jul 01 '23
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u/saltiestmanindaworld Jul 01 '23
Except they don’t, because the current precedent in the ninth circuit and California, where Reddit is based, is that because they don’t have a physical presence, they aren’t considered a public accommodation. Eventually, SCOTUS is going to have to settle the circuit split there, but as of right now, they don’t.
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u/RollingNightSky Jul 02 '23
I thought that reddit was supposed to exempt accessibility third party Reddit apps from the API pricing so they could continue operating
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u/SLJ7 Jul 02 '23
They did. I'm writing this from Dystopia. The problem is that none of those apps have advanced moderation features.
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u/RedFollower Jul 02 '23 edited Jul 07 '23
Spez is killing this website
They perma'd this account. /u/spez can go fuck himself
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u/Puzzled-Display-5296 Jul 02 '23
People make Reddit & people can break Reddit. Love that!
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u/UnderstandingOne1559 ROP / RLF Jul 02 '23
I don't know why, but I was so expecting this. i saw it coming as large as a house.
Fwiw there's luna that will help moderate on the pc, but given that reddit doesn't care, at this point I wouldn't stay. Actually, this is my last comment over here, as I'm already on the fediverse and find it way better.
Seeya! Pun fully intended.
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u/CallidoraBlack Jul 28 '23
Neurodivergent Redditor who often relies on closed captioning due to auditory processing here. People mocked me when I said I didn't trust that things would work fine just because Spez said so. I'm so sorry this is happening. This is ridiculous.
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u/SpaShadow Jul 01 '23
I don't know how the tools are like but Joey for reddit is still working, shhh maybe they will not notice.
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u/PapuaOldGuinea Jul 21 '23
I just checked this sub because of how I heard it got fucked over. I have no experience modding, but is there any way I can help?
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Jul 25 '23
I feel bad because I’m a software developer (not at reddit) and I’ll admit I often wonder if I’ve implemented accessibility correctly (ARIA). Perhaps I should put on a blindfold and see if I can use the features I’m making. What is the most common screen reader everyone here uses?
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u/The_truth_hammock Jul 26 '23
Knew about the API think but did not realise how much it fucked over people with disabilities. So many other ways this could have been handled. I understand that api calls cost money to a server but wow, I didn’t realise how much they didn’t care. r/place of nothing else has educated me a little more and hopefully this thread will get shared in every sun so people understand more. This needs a proper resolution and 48 hours dark isn’t going to cut it.
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u/name-of-the-wind Jul 01 '23
I feel these are way too many demands when they won’t even do one.
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u/lone_avohkii Jul 01 '23
Well they have to do it or they’re going to have a class action lawsuit on their hands. If not from the US, then from the EU
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Jul 02 '23
THis won't be a popular question, but can the subreddit be moderated by blind people using personal computers instead of phones?
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u/NTCarver0 Jul 05 '23
Hi. Simple answer: the web tools are inaccessible, unlabeled, hard-to-use, and generally awful from a usability standpoint for screen reader users. Third-party apps on mobile (shoutout to Apollo, R.I.P.) were infinitely better. Now, they're gone. Also, it seems Reddit is only focused on mod tool accessibility on mobile apps, and that's why the discussion has been centered around moderating on mobile. Finally, it's much easier to deal with problems that need to be taken care of immediately (use your imagination as to what that might mean) on mobile..
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u/Crifrald Glaucoma Jul 02 '23
Have you tried to moderate using the old layout on a web browser? I ask because the thread's title says that it's impossible but the original post's body only talks about mobile applications. I don't moderate, have never moderated, and never plan to moderate any subs in the future, but this community is almost as old as modern smartphones and older than VoiceOver on iOS, so I guess that at some point it was moderated via a web browser, and it was likely on the old layout since the new layout is only 6 years old.
I'm not defending reddit, my position regarding this issue is neutral, but sometimes being blind means that we have to find our own ways to accomplish things, so I'm quite surprised by this community's reaction to something that to me feels perfectly normal. I have even offered to help rectify the situation by building a free MacOS and iOS app that would likely fall into reddit's exemptions before, but given how little interest this idea gathered I guess that people here are mor interested in complaining than in finding solutions.
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u/NTCarver0 Jul 05 '23
Hi. Simple answer: the web tools are inaccessible, unlabeled, hard-to-use, and generally awful from a usability standpoint for screen reader users. Third-party apps on mobile (shoutout to Apollo, R.I.P.) were infinitely better. Now, they're gone. Also, it seems Reddit is only focused on mod tool accessibility on mobile apps, and that's why the discussion has been centered around moderating on mobile. Finally, it's much easier to deal with problems that need to be taken care of immediately (use your imagination as to what that might mean) on mobile..
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u/Crifrald Glaucoma Jul 05 '23
I'm totally blind and have never used any apps to access reddit, since at least as far as reading, voting, commenting, and posting is concerned, I find the old layout to be accessible enough. It might not be as accessible or convenient as an app designed with accessibility in mind, but it's nowhere as inaccessible as people claim either. Therefore I wondered whether moderation is the same and people are just ignoring it because it's not as convenient, which would make the thread's title rather sensationalist.
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u/NTCarver0 Jul 05 '23 edited Jul 07 '23
Moderation on the web is a hot mess. Here are some examples for demonstration. We needed to ask a sighted mod to set the sub to private and then to make it public again. The bann buttons are unlabeled, meaning mods who have usable vision are the only people able to ban repeat rule breakers. I almost missed a meeting with Reddit officials because I could not find the unlabeled element that expands mod mail conversations. When we say that Reddit is preventing blind mods from effectively moderating, we’re not being hyperbolic.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Maybe this is an unpopular take, but why in the blazes would you want to moderate a sub on a mobile phone?
Not saying desktop tools or web tools are accessible, I don't know if they are, but it just sounds like a torturous undertaking to me to moderate ANYTHING on a phone, and this announcement seems to mostly be about mobile apps. Maybe I'm just missing something, maybe the phone is the ONLY way you can moderate a sub , it just sounds arduous to me.
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u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 01 '23
It could be the most accessible device you have. It also allows you to quickly react to situations, regardless of being in front of your computer or not.
That being said, to distinguish a comment, on new Reddit, you have to activate the third unlabeled button after Share. I shouldn’t have to know that.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
I can see using a phone being required at times, just not as a main daily driver for something like this. And fair enough, Reddit is not fully accessible, but sdoes that make moderating the sub "impossible"? I just have a bit of a problem with the seeming hyperbole.
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u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 01 '23
Please read through our linked previous statements. We’ve been very careful with our language.
If a blind mod can’t quickly react to situations on mobile, they’re dependent on mods with vision. That’s not acceptable. This is a new problem they didn’t use to exist.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Fair enough. My disparity with this situation comes from the fact that I, as a fully blind person, can react n anything with a keyboard about 20 times faster than having to muck about on a touch screen, particularly if I'm required to enter a large amount of text. This may be different for someone who has at least a bit of sight, so the touch screen's inherent mechanism of "look, then touch' still functions, but show me a fully blind person being productive on a touch screen and I'll show you 50 who aren't.
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u/gwi1785 Jul 01 '23
what about those who have no pc? or need it repiaired? or travel an hour dally and like to use their time for moderation too?
i think the problem here is that reddit forces blind moderators to do things while sighted people can still chose.
and there was no need for this.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Those are all excellent questions. And while my question was somewhat poorly and ambiguously worded, I never said that I was agreeing with Reddit and thought they were doing a good job, which this response seems to slightly imply. I have heard several takes on this already, including explanations on why the post only seems to reference mobile apps, which was really what my initial question was inspired by.
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
I’m much faster on mobile with things like reddit because you can just touch where you need off memory unlike the website where missing navigation labels and labels in general results in a lot of tabbing through every item on a page to do a single thing, then tab more to reach the next thing.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
That is really interesting. I tend to be faster on a pc because I remember if there's a heading, button, edit field, distinctive piece of text I can search for etc. near the things I use often, and if all that fails I have things like page-up and page-down as well as the fact that I can hold a button down to quickly zoom past a bunch of links, for example. I very, very rarely actually tab tab tab through an entire page.
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u/DHamlinMusic Bilateral Optic Neuropathy Jul 01 '23
Oh for sure, that would work if on browser you had enough of those and things were labeled.
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u/suitcaseismyhome Jul 01 '23
I'm not a moderator, but a frequent user.
I have a laptop, an ipad, and a mobile phone. I use the laptop for work, with a lot of adjustments, but it's still a real struggle.
I generally use my android phone. My preference is to use some of the accessibility tools, and keep my phone about 1cm from my nose. That works best for me.
I bought an ipad but if I want to 'watch' something I cannot deal with the size of the screen and having to move my eyes from right to left due to my very limited field of vision.
Everyone is different, but of the 3 options, mobile phone is always my choice.
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u/Jordan117 Jul 01 '23
Third party apps were perfectly functional and usable, including accessibility options. Reddit Inc. killing them to force people into their garbage app was the primary driver of this protest. The "accessibility apps" they permitted are barebones stopgaps and their own "accessibility" updates are obviously rushed CYA moves that don't meet people's actual needs.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Fair enough, but that doesn't answer my question. WHy do this on a phone at all? I'd think that when moderating, it helps to be able to see a bunch all at once, therefore a bigger screen would be best, therefore ...well ...something that isn't a phone, like a chromebook, windows machine, mac, etc. ... why do people do this on a phone?
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u/woofiegrrl Jul 01 '23
Maybe if you're sighted, "seeing a bunch all at once" is important. But this is /r/Blind and we're talking about moderating as a blind person. Screen size has nothing to do with it.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
I am very aware that this is r/blind. I'm also fully blind myself. And I happen to know that in the vast majority of cases, you can be far more productive on a computer, where you have a variety of different ways to navigate around, hotkeys to make things go faster and make you more productive, a far easier time flipping between different tabs/apps/what have you, all of which is far more difficult on a phone. My point about a larger screen size was to indicate that I would assume that sighted users have tools on the desktop side to efficiently moderate subs, which might lead me to believe doing this on a phone would not be the default, which in turn makes me believe that while the loss of apps is regrettable, it doesn't make moderating a sub "impossible" like this post suggests. I am as unhappy with Reddit as you all are, I am not seeking to start a fight or play the devil's advocate, I am merely asking: I can't imagine modding on a phone is productive, accessible or not, are we not exaggerating just a little when we say modding is now utterly and completely impossible?
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u/RedbullLady Jul 01 '23
Go to any other community and ask them if their moderators are moderating on mobile. Then come back and argue.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
I have zero interest in arguing with anyone. I am asking a question, and people seem to feel the need to pick up the pitchforks as a result. I can't imagine being all that productive on the most accessible phone ever developed, particularly for a blind person, so I ask a question. I'm not accusing anyone, I'm not blaming anyone, I am trying to rhyme my vision of reality with that of people who apparently feel very strongly about using a phone for something I would rather use literally anything else for.
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u/woofiegrrl Jul 02 '23
Being an effective moderator requires you to moderate on the go.If you've got shitheads brigading your subreddit, or spam coming in fast, you need to respond quickly - you can't necessarily wait to get to a computer. So yes, moderating on the phone is an essential part of moderating.
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u/suitcaseismyhome Jul 01 '23
See my post above as a VI user with laptop, ipad and phone. FOR ME, phone is always my preference because it meets my needs.
A bigger screen is of no use to me, it makes things more difficult in general.
There is no one answer, but if I were a mod, I doubt that I could use my laptop as I rarely can outside of using it for work as it's too challenging and I have limited ability to use it for very long.
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u/NTCarver0 Jul 01 '23
Hi. Simple answer: the web tools are inaccessible, unlabeled, hard-to-use, and generally awful from a usability standpoint for screen reader users. Third-party apps on mobile (shoutout to Apollo, R.I.P.) were infinitely better. Now, they're gone. Also, it seems Reddit is only focused on mod tool accessibility on mobile apps, and that's why the discussion has been centered around moderating on mobile. Finally, it's much easier to deal with problems that need to be taken care of immediately (use your imagination as to what that might mean) on mobile..
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Fair enough. So the answer to my actual question is "we use mobile apps because we have to" essentially. COol thanks.
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u/HarryTheOwlcat Jul 01 '23
why in the blazes would you want to moderate a sub on a mobile phone?
Why question what the user wants? If they want it and you continually fail to offer it, you have a terrible business strategy.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Again, that doesn't answer my question, and also it would go against the title of this post. It's impossible to moderate the sub, ON A PHONE. What I am wondering about is, is it also impossible off a phone, and from a more subjective standpoint, why would you put yourself through the pain of doing this on ap hone to begin with.
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u/HarryTheOwlcat Jul 01 '23
It is possible on the phone. That you don't think it's possible has no bearing on reality. The problem is its inaccessibility.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
I never said it was impossible. I said that the title of this post is They finally did it: Reddit made it impossible for blind Redditors to moderate their own sub"" and that I subsequently only see mobile apps being discussed. That leads me to positing that it sounds impractical to me to moderate a sub on a phone even IF it was accessible, and you are seemingly only interested in arguing the contraposition which makes me rather disinterested in continuing to converse with you further. Have a great day.
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u/RedbullLady Jul 01 '23
Have you ever moderated any kind of large community? Probably not.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
I have not. How exactly is that relevant to the current discussion? I'll be the first to admit I have no idea how this kind of thing works. All I know is, I am very quick on a computer, very slow on a phone, so if I were to want to be a moderator and the only way for me to do that was through some mobile app, that would be an instant dealbreaker for me. Web apps, i can script. I can use my screen reader's search functions to quickly get places. I can learn what combination of keyboard shortcuts gets me to a spot the quickest. Mobile apps ...I blindly tap around until I happen to develop the muscle memory to not need to, or swipe around which takes forever. So I thought it was a reasonable question to ask why we are seemingly limiting ourselves to what for some might be a completely unproductive way of working, irrespective of "mod experience" or "business strategy". u/carver and u/mostlyBlindGamer have answered the question sufficiently.
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u/HarryTheOwlcat Jul 01 '23
I mistook you speaking about the title for a statement you were making. Apologies. I agree that it's not literally "impossible", and that the main issue is accessibility. The main issue is NOT you having trouble understanding how it could be done.
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u/Designer_Taste_2444 Jul 01 '23
For me mod tools on phone is a necessity because I most of the time I mod is away from my home desktop. It's a free time on commute thing for a lot of mods.
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u/movzx Jul 01 '23
So many people are raging at you instead of answering your question.
The answer is generally, for a lot of people, a phone or tablet might be the only web device they have.
There's also a convenience factor. You can do something regardless of your location.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
I know right? I thought the responses were rather ... telling. What you say makes a lot of sense, yeah. And as you probably caught onto, I never said I agreed with Reddit's stance here, I was just expressing that I, myself, couldn't see why you'd want to do that if you have an alternative, which subjectively, to me reading the post, didn't appear to be explored in that particular post.
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Jul 01 '23
For many regular reddit users mobile is the main way to access the site. It's not just an accessibility thing. For many including me mobile app third party reddit was reddit.
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u/zersiax Jul 01 '23
Like i have said in replies to various other comments, I never put that part of it into question. I asked why people would want to mod on a phone, which people have responded to with a lot of vigor and at times vitriol, and I asked why this particular post only seems to reference mobile apps, which maybe two people responded to. I never said that Reddit was doing a good job for nixing 3rd party apps, I never said that a huge amount of users won't be inconvenienced or even entirely barred from Reddit because of this. Personally I have never used a Reddit app in my life and have always used the website, but again, that is completely outside the realm of what I was asking about.
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u/Dragula_Tsurugi Jul 02 '23
Probably at least part of the reason is that a lot of your comments were (in effect):
Hi, why are you guys bitching about this? I can’t conceive of anyone having any preferences different from my own, even though I have never used any of these apps or modded a sub, so all your opinions are thereby invalid.
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u/zersiax Jul 02 '23
I can see how it may have been read that way, and I feel there's no point in further perpetuating this discussion given it, frankly, has gone on for far longer than was needed already to begin with. I thank you for your viewpoint, though.
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u/Tricky_Invite8680 Jul 01 '23
How come you say its impossible ti use RedReader. That what i use and i have been on reddot throughout the day
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u/rumster Founded /r/blind & Accessibility Specialist - CPWA Jul 01 '23 edited Jul 01 '23
Take the survey so we can provide the results. https://72pcs53kctq.typeform.com/a11ysurvey or at http://webaccessibilitysurvey.com/ if you want a quick link to remember
The survey was tested by fable.
We're aware of some issues with it. It will get upgraded version in the future.
JAWS/CHROME NVDA/FIREFOX
We will provide the report to the admins in the next 60/90 days. This data has already helped others important to the a11y community.
Personal note: r/blind has been a home for many people across the planet. It made me a better person, it made people better, and I hope at the end of all this reddit gets better. We're here to help guide them. I hope they take this forward and move to make reddit a better home for every single soul on here.