Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands ☣Hot Take that I didn't expect to see in the year of our noodle, 2024, but honestly, I'm not surprised by: Alt text is used by AI to train their image recognition, so maybe we shouldn't put alt text on images. (This was on Pillowfort, interrupting a discussion about how PF doesn't facilitate access to alt text for people who aren't using a screen reader.)
May be just me, but this feels like ableist victim blaming. Encouraging and enabling users to include alt text on their images has been an uphill battle, one that despite relative success here on Fedi, is still held back on many other social sites on the web. Someone is opening a conversation to ask PF to make it easier for them to include alt text on their site, and a person is rolling in with this fucked up take.
It feels like Tumblr Social Justice Warrior all over again: rolling ahead Leroy Jinkins style in the name of their cause without any awareness or care of the collateral damage that comes with it.
Expecting users who need screen readers to just deal with being left out from images because corporations are being abusive of intellectual property is not the right take here, and please STFU already. We need to address the hateful corporations and their behavior instead of asking a segment of society that is already discriminated against to just be left out because the abusers are misusing a tool that was intended to make things more inclusive.
Bonus round, as I was writing this, they actually replied to me defending it. I'm just like, you realize this is an ableist take, right? People who are literally discriminated against in our society being asked to go without accessibility tools because corporations are being abusive.
#Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters #AltText #StopVictimBlaming
May be just me, but this feels like ableist victim blaming. Encouraging and enabling users to include alt text on their images has been an uphill battle, one that despite relative success here on Fedi, is still held back on many other social sites on the web. Someone is opening a conversation to ask PF to make it easier for them to include alt text on their site, and a person is rolling in with this fucked up take.
It feels like Tumblr Social Justice Warrior all over again: rolling ahead Leroy Jinkins style in the name of their cause without any awareness or care of the collateral damage that comes with it.
Expecting users who need screen readers to just deal with being left out from images because corporations are being abusive of intellectual property is not the right take here, and please STFU already. We need to address the hateful corporations and their behavior instead of asking a segment of society that is already discriminated against to just be left out because the abusers are misusing a tool that was intended to make things more inclusive.
Bonus round, as I was writing this, they actually replied to me defending it. I'm just like, you realize this is an ableist take, right? People who are literally discriminated against in our society being asked to go without accessibility tools because corporations are being abusive.
#Accessibility #AccessibilityMatters #AltText #StopVictimBlaming