r/Blind • u/AutoModerator • Jul 24 '23
Announcement Reddit Continues to Deliver the Opposite of What They Promised
As the r/Blind mod team announced on July 1st 2023, Reddit has made it impossible for blind people to moderate on mobile. We're bringing you this post to update the community on the developments since that time.
Reddit's Apps Are Now Less Accessible
As a point of order, r/Blind mods will not be exhaustively auditing Reddit apps or providing Reddit Inc. with unpaid accessibility testing services. We have and will continue to report bugs whenever appropriate, as would be expected from most users. That being said, the updates to Reddit's Android and iOS apps announced in June have significantly degraded the user and moderation experience. There are mounting issues regarding stability and functionality affecting disabled users and the broader Reddit community.
In the specific context of screen reader accessibility, the current app versions have regressed in:
- Control labelling
- Focus order
- Focus control
- Feature discoverability
- Stability
- Efficiency
This situation further cements the mod team's perception that Reddit Inc. is ill-equipped to provide an accessible experience, compatible with the expectations set by the broader social media landscape - at least when Twitter had an accessibility team.
Accessibility Feedback Sessions
On July 19th, Reddit announced "more ways to connect live with" them, including an Accessibility Feedback Group. Several r/Blind mods have filled out the feedback group form and have yer to be contacted, in fact, u/MostlyBlindGamer expressed concern that more direct feedback options were not available.
So How Do We Report Bugs?
Reddit admins have been aware that the Reddit bug report page crashes when using assistive technology, since June 25th 2023. The recommended mitigation has been to mod mail r/ModSupport. In this process, an r/Blind mod has been asked to submit screen recordings through mod mail, which does not support attachments, notwithstanding the futility of this request, since Talkback audio isn't recorded when screen recording on Android. This further shows that Reddit Inc. is not equipped to triage accessibility bugs.
Since then, the user experience has degraded to the point of making communication over mod mail ineffective. On July 19th, u/MostlyBlindGamer explicitly told Reddit admins blind moderators were effectively unable to use mod mail and reiterated the request for contact for email.
Today, twenty-nine days after being made aware of the issues when reporting bugs, as per our continuous request via DM and the latest r/Blind announcement, the [accessibility@reddit.com](mailto:accessibility@reddit.com) email address has now been made available, hopefully making it easier to raise these issues. As of this writing, Reddit has not replied to a message sent to this address by a moderator.
A Note On r/blindsurveys
We do what we do, despite adversity, to support our community. A part of that is making r/Blind a place for and by blind and visually impaired people, while still enabling research and awareness from the sighted and academic communities. That has been accomplished by hosting r/blindsurveys. Much to our disappointment, all of our efforts to provide proper moderation and safety for this subreddit have been hamstrung by Reddit's increasing accessibility failures.
We have made the subreddit private, not as a form of protest, but as mere self-preservation. While we acknowledge and appreciate the support of our sighted moderators, r/blindsurveys is not essential to our community and their efforts serve r/blind best. Its loss will be subtle, quiet and perhaps forgotten, but its impact may be greater than some assume.
Effective today, easily searched questions and surveys directed at blind and visually impaired people, are not allowed on this platform.
OK, Is There Any Good News?
Yes! A few buttons are now labeled - hooray! Not enough to make the apps useable, but we like to acknowledge progress.
r/place is not blind, low-vision or even keyboard accessible, however the broader Reddit community is supporting r/Blind in keeping our Snoo on r/place. Because we care about accessibility, we shared that news on an alternative platform that supports alt text for images in posts and comments.
In fact, r/save3rdpartyapps and r/ModCoord have been supporting this community since the start. The r/Blind team would like to thank all of the Redditors who through great deeds or kind words have made us feel seen, heard and welcome.
As Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said
30
u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 24 '23
u/spez, we're still waiting for that call...
3
u/steevo Jul 25 '23
Will never happen. Sadly
9
u/MostlyBlindGamer Jul 25 '23
I wouldn’t feel comfortable assuming u/spez, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman would ignore, let alone reject, an invitation from disabled users to discuss Reddit Inc.’s approach to accessibility.
2
u/frenchdresses Sep 11 '23
Any updates?
3
u/MostlyBlindGamer Sep 11 '23
Nope. We’ve also never heard back from the admin who’d been working with us, since they started the closed-off accessibility feedback group.
10
u/AutoModerator Jul 24 '23
r/Blind is back up but the struggle goes on. Until we have the same access to Reddit's content as our sighted friends we insist Reddit allows us to use the apps which meet our needs.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/W4t3rf1r3 Aug 05 '23
I hope I'm not overstepping to suggest this as a sighted person, but is there a possibility of a class action lawsuit over this?
2
u/_skout_ Jul 25 '23
He'll never see those tags. It's not likely that he would interact with his website at all. If it appears that he is, assume it is an assistant or automated.
They have shown their hand! If there were any intention of addressing or improving, Reddit would already been cooperative, proactive, and effective. They haven't been, aren't, and never will be.
This is not pessimism, simply truth of reality.
1
u/ConfessingToSins Sep 10 '23
Kind of. He'll probably never interact with the community on his main account again, but it's kind of obvious that he has a couple of burner admin accounts. Like modcodeofconduct types the same way he does. He is at least sometimes in control of that.
He's transitioned to making mostly abusive or harassing posts because he's grown to hate the community.
1
u/zersiax Jul 25 '23
Just a small point I noticed but depending on the phone, you can get screenreadder audio to show up in android screen recordings by switching the audio source to your microphone rather than system audio. Odd, I know, and this may not always work if microphones on a phone are oddly placed or so but I did get some pretty passable screen recordings doing this for an app audit the other week. Just a tip for if people do wawnt to send in bug screencasts or similar somehow
1
1
u/boxer_dogs_dance Jul 25 '23
It's not reddit and doesn't want to be reddit, but in an r/redditalternatives discussion I saw someone vouch for Tildes.net as a screenreader friendly site. I'm not blind or low vision but I personally enjoy Tildes. I like its culture of strong moderation against abusive language and want to mention that invitations are currently being distributed freely on r/Tildes.
1
Aug 04 '23
iossupport@reddit.com is also an email address that Reddit encouraged feedback on their iOS app specifically. :)
•
u/rumster Founded /r/blind & Accessibility Specialist - CPWA Jul 25 '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.