#visuallyimpaired — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #visuallyimpaired, aggregated by home.social.
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64-year-old woman has been going blind for nearly 50 years. AI glasses just helped her 'see' again.
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/ai-glasses-help-blind-woman-see
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@Tor Iver Wilhelmsen For starters, making it a hard technical requirement on the server side would exclude and discriminate against- actually blind or visually-impaired people who do post images regardless
- neurodivergent people who, due to their disability, are incapable of turning images into words
Besides, what's "the platform"? Only Mastodon or the whole Fediverse?
Just in case you didn't know: The Fediverse server applications that can send posts with images and other media onto your timeline include, but aren't limited to:- Mastodon
- Glitch
- Hometown
- Pleroma
- Akkoma
- Misskey
- Calckey
- Firefish
- Iceshrimp-JS
- Iceshrimp.NET
- CherryPick
- Sharkey
- Meisskey
- GoToSocial
- snac
- Hollo
- Tootik
- Mitra
- micro.blog
- Smithereen
- Socialhome
- Friendica
- Hubzilla (that's what this comment came from)
- (streams)
- Forte
- Pixelfed
- Vernissage
- PeerTube
- Loops
- Plume
- WriteFreely (needs an external image host, but still)
- WordPress
- Ghost
- nodeBB
- Lemmy
- /kbin
- Mbin
- PieFed
If "the platform" means something with one development team, it's only Mastodon. And everything else I've listed above, and then some, is free to keep alt-text optional.
If "the platform" means the whole Fediverse, this means that well over 100 Fediverse server applications, all being developed independently from another and especially from Mastodon, often working vastly differently from Mastodon, would have to make it impossible to post images without alt-text. This, by the way, is next to impossible to implement on at least some of them due to the way they handle images and therefore alt-text.
And you can be certain about one thing: If the Mastodon developers add something to Mastodon, it's very unlikely that Mario Vavti and Harald Eilertsen, the Hubzilla developers, and Mike Macgirvin, inventor of Friendica and Hubzilla and still developer of (streams) and Forte, will follow suit. Other server applications won't because they're dead in spite of still having running servers (Calckey, Firefish, /kbin etc.), they're in maintenance mode which means they won't get new features (Iceshrimp-JS), or their development is on hold (Plume).
CC: @Dgar
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #Blind #VisuallyImpaired #Neurodivergent #Neurodivergence -
OK, #ProTip time
you might have noticed that some of my toots have multiple blank lines so that I can create some space between the main body and (e.g.) a footnote…
“but itgrrl” you might ask yourself “how is such witchcraft possible, since most platforms render #UserGeneratedContent as sanitised #HTML & rarely convert multiple newlines into multiple line break or paragraph #HTML tags? 😲”
welp, I have a replacement text trigger for that too 😜 💁♀️
trigger: //nb
expands to: (non-breaking space #unicode character)
for this one, I may need to apologise to to #blind & otherwise #VisuallyImpaired folks, as it would be annoying & / or confusing to have “non-breaking space” read out by your #ScreenReader software (I haven’t checked this across a bunch™ of screen readers)
from what I’ve read, most screen readers won’t / shouldn’t read out non-printable characters (either HTML or unicode) but some may – I’d love to get some real-world feedback on the range of different screen reader behaviours for this case
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#VisuallyImpaired #voters sue #NewHampshire over changes to #Absentee #BallotAccess
The plaintiffs say the new law will deter some voters with #disabilities from participating in the democratic process at all, even after they have registered to voteBy Steven Porter Globe Staff, Updated August 21, 2025, 9:30 a.m.
"Three people with visual impairments are suing New Hampshire officials to challenge the constitutionality of a law that will soon tighten #PhotoID requirements for voters seeking an #AbsenteeBallot.
"The plaintiffs — Adele Robertson of #ExeterNH, Daniel Frye of #ConcordNH, and Regina Wilson of #BrentwoodNH — allege the new law, known as #SenateBill287, will impose a significant burden on every #AbsenteeVoter statewide.
" 'And, in some cases, these burdens will entirely prevent voters from exercising their #RightToVote,' their lawsuit states.
Under the new rules imposed by #SB287, voters will be required to either bring a photo ID to their local election officials to request an absentee ballot in person, or submit a copy of their ID or a notarized signature along with their application.
While proponents said the legislation will better protect election integrity, critics said the changes will add barriers that disproportionately impact #seniors, voters with #disabilities, and those living in #rural parts of the state."Read more:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/21/metro/nh-blind-disabilities-voters-absentee-ballots/Archived version:
https://archive.ph/DWXKG#VoterDisenfranchisement #DisabilityRights #USPol #NHPol #AbsenteeVoting #USElections
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