They finally did it: Reddit made it impossible for blind Redditors to moderate their own sub

I hope reddit advertisers can see this. Why would you want to be associated with a site that discriminates against the blind?
- they already lost 4.5bn because of this. Their valuation was cut down to 5.5bn from 10bn just the other day
  
  And if I remember correctly that value cut was from before all this happened so it’s probably fixin to drop even more
  
  https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/30/fidelity-deepens-valuation-cut-for-reddit-and-discord/
  Valued at 10 billion when fidelity bought an ownership stake in 2021.
  Currently they estimate Reddit is worth 5.6 billion
  Well done team, I bet the investor calls are going great!
  
  That valuation cut was from before the whole shitstorm. We've yet to see the impact that this has all had on them, but given the attempts to crush the protests by the reddit admins, when they've just sort of ignored this stuff in the past, its likely not good
  
  That’s not them actually losing money, though. They’re a private company, not a public one. Their valuation is just what analysts think that they’re worth—it has nothing to do with how much money they have.
  
  Only 5.5 billion more to go
  
  That valuation was inflated as fuck anyways
- There have been reports of the traffic to their advertising portal dropping by about 20% over the past month
  
  I'm actually surprised that metric would change much, because the users viewing ads aren't impacted by changes to the API or third party apps. So that's literally just 20% of people who either stopped using the site in solidarity or couldn't get to their content because of the protests.
- I hope reddit advertisers can see this
  I see what you did there. (Pun fully intended)
- I get advocacy and I think this is a major point in the API changes, but the blind community deserves better than to just be ammo for this fight.

u/Spez really didn't take the community seriously with the protests which has lead to this mass exodus. Crazy how they killed their platform so quickly with the writing on the wall in neon bright colors.
- "I didn't realize that the big button labeled self destruct would be a problem if I push it. I just wanted more space for my money printing machine to print more money and the button was in the way!"
  
  Really looking hard at how the intention of building a community to sell it at a profit has turned out for Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and now Reddit. People are burned out from constantly trying to chase the next big app. It's at the point now where everyone knows playing into corporate social media will only result in its eventual death, so what's the point in engaging?
- Why would someone that was once a mod for Jailbait subs not be a scumbag?
- I’m curious what the actual traffic differences are today from previous. Is it really a significant exodus, or just a blip in the scheme of things.
  
  There's a huge difference between reading reddit (with ads blocked ;)) and actually being active on reddit (i.e. posting/commenting -- adding content).
  I believe the former will not decline so fast, there is simply too much info on reddit, especially on niche subjects, from experts. I'll probably keep 'using' reddit for my search results and such. But I've stopped commenting and posting. Reddit needs content, not just readers/traffic.
  If there is a decline it will probably be slow, and it will mostly affect the quality of content. If power users leave, it won't make much difference in quantity, but quality, well... And when it comes to 3rd party apps I would imagine most of those users weren't the casual 'read a few posts a day'-users, but the really active ones.
  
  I'd also be curious to see the difference and if reddit actually felt it in their bottom line

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is discriminating against people with disabilities!
- I wonder if this could be considered a violation of the ADA. They have no alternatives in place for people with disabilities.
  
  Spudz don't give a fuck
- It really is remarkable how fucking awful he is
- I have not been on reddit for the past 3 days. I try my best to not visit the site when it comes up in search results, I either use web archive or google cached results to find what I’m looking for.

I read the thread and I kind of cringed inside. I understand the moderators of r/blind want to keep the resources & information accessible but they actually tried to negotiate and sort it out with Reddit according to their words and Reddit just didn’t give a fuck about them. What I would’ve done is just nuke the sub and move to Lemmy yet they continue to eat shit from u/spez
I feel for them.
- r/Blind is still a valuable resource for many people. No sense denying people access to it. r/Blind mods already created a Lemmy instance which they try to promote for their members. But learning new software can be challenging when you can't see, especially if the software isn't very accessible.
  
  That is a fair, I just hate to see the community abused like that and being held hostage by one VC schmuck who doesn't understand that he's basically killing his platform.
  
  r/Blind is still a valuable resource for Reddit to exploit many people, especially blind people.
- I've not looked for myself, but does Lemmy or Kbin have good, accessible tooling? They're both much more modern so I would expect that it would be a priority, but they're also much less mature so I wouldn't be surprised if little in that way has been implemented yet.
  
  I genuinely have no idea, regardless, this Stockholm syndrome needs to stop. Understanding when you’re not welcomed is crucial to a community’s success.
  
  The frontend of Lemmy is an inferno app, which is a JS framework like react.
  I noticed that command enter didn't submit comments, so I made both a userscript and then later opened a pull request fixing it. The pull request has already been merged, so should be coming to Lemmy soon.
  Back 13 years ago, I built the compact interface to reddit. Now, I'm a much better developer than I was then, but Lemmy front end seems a hell of a lot more organized
- It's not like Lemmy has great mod tools.
  
  As long the API is free, and anyone can whip up instance suited to their need, it's only a matter of time and effort until a good mod tool is created
  
  Rome wasn't built in a day. We're seeing in real-time solid apps pop into existence. The one I'm using right now was only released a few weeks ago. Sync is a big one that just released their app today, albeit under a "coming soon" tag.
  It's pretty crazy what's going on right now.
  
  Does that mean Lemmy is ableist and evil too?????
- they actually tried to negotiate and sort it out with Reddit according to their words and Reddit just didn’t give a fuck about them.
  More than that, during his AMA, spez actually said he was actively working with them. Fucking liar!
  
  I mean… we all knew that was just corpo talk. CEOs lie, that’s their profession.
- This is following a predictable pattern:
  Person/group reaches out to admins in good faith to discuss changes.
  They don't hear anything at all.
  Reddit touts them as an example of how they're working with people.
  The admins get back to them.
  They don't listen or care about the concerns and aren't going to change anything.
- they actually tried to negotiate and sort it out with Reddit according to their words and Reddit just didn’t give a fuck about them.
  More than that, during his AMA, spez actually said he was actively working with them. Fucking liar!

Things are getting worse. Some subreddits like /r/breastfeeding, which were private from the start, are now being forced by Reddit to make their subreddits public. It's completely stupid. r/breastfeeding NEEDS to stay private to keep creeps and weirdos away.

Someone needs to start a "campaign" for naming and shaming companies who advertises on Reddit. "[This company] supports a company that actively discriminates against the disabled. #SayNoToReddit"
- I already cancelled my Dashlane, after they did an AMA on Reddit during the blackout. I don't support companies who cross picket lines.
- Don't know what else to say in agreement to your comment but I very much agree with it
  We need to start taking back power from corporations because without us they are nothing
  Transfer our reliance away from corporations as much as possible
- honestly yes. While I do think "ableism" is sometimes took to a bit of an extreme, in this case it's good... and serves the good purpose of making Reddit even less money, which is a good purpose in and of itself!
- This is the way, hitting Reddit where it hurts.
  People can complain and try to make Reddit listen but they do not care. As long as they have money rolling in from ads.
- Thats a good one, companies would sure run away if enough people made noise
- Saved

What's so stupid is that they don't even have to do that. alt text can be fucking handled by eslint and a pipeline checker. This is basic devops. Reddit has 1400 employees, wtf are they doing?
- Maybe they're busy being moderators for subs since they lost so many volunteers.
  
  r/interestingasfuck has been abandoned for a week after the mods were given the boot. I think r/TIHI is also left closed without mods. If the admins were going to act as interim mods, they would have already started with those two. I don't think they've even removed the porn from the former yet.
- Getting increasingly frustrated with management decisions while knowing their hands are tied. Being "that guy/gal" who comes up with ideas is an outlier that must be squashed at this point. Everyone is keeping their heads down as long as their pay check clears. Good odds that most are looking for work, but everyone's got mouths to feed so I don't slight the staff in this at all.
- Sending death threats to mods and their families I guess.

This would be illegal in the EU if true, websites MUST be accessible to those with disabilities. There are no exceptions.
- It would be illegal in the US too and business get sued every day because of it.
  
  Somebody'll make money off of reddit and it'll be the lawyers.
- I'm not so sure about the "no exceptions"... I assume you're refering to the Web Accessibility Directive here. It specifically states this:
  This directive does not apply to public service broadcasters or non-governmental organisations that do not provide services that are essential to the public or specifically to people with disabilities.
  This is very much an exception, and a big one at that.
  Since reddit does not provide services essential to the public, they are not required to comply with web accessibility standards.
  I'm happy to be proven wrong here, but this is how i interpreted it and it would cause a lot of problems if the EU started going after private websites (which reddit still is, they are not a public sector, nor do they provide essential services to the public) and force them to be accessible.

Plebbit: "Oh, look! Our loyal users are disliking our new changes. Hmm... maybe we should screw with em by messing with their (basic and expected) user freedom! That will make em go back to their e-home, that's for sure!"

I'm not up-to-date with the latest in accessibility, but does lemmy cater for those who need assistive tech? (just curious)
- Just taking a shot in the dark, but I'm assuming if people were making the needed third party apps for Reddit before, they can repeat this task for Lemmy.
  (Please correct me if I'm wrong though.)
  
  You are absolutely correct. Lemmy's federated nature basically guarantees that free / affordable API access will always be available to app developers.
  
  Thing about Lemmy is, since its federated, and fully opensource, even if it doesn't right now, adding an accessible interface is trivial. Be it through forks/pull requests, separate clients or frontends, or as a full-fledged federated peer focused on accessibility
  
  There are many apps in active development now, yes.
- I would assume that Lemmy is not very accessible yet, but Lemmy’s mobile apps are under a month old. They are making fast progress and I would expect that to change very soon.
  However, Reddit’s app has been out for years and they have been told about its accessibility problems for just as long. The impression I get is that they didn’t prioritize accessibility since third-party apps handled that for them. When they cut off access to these apps, they made it very clear that they have no alternatives in mind; they consider the visually-impaired userbase to be insignificant and simply don’t care about their issues.
  
  Lemmy’s mobile apps are under a month old
  At least one (Jerboa) is considerably older than that, but just hasn't had a lot of polish put into it because it's a first-party app and the devs were prioritizing working on the server software itself.
- Lemmy is open source and built by the community - the apps are all third party - with the exception of Jerboa, which is maintained by the same maintainers as Lemmy and lemmys default web interface.
  So if the community want accessibility, they can do it themselves, submitting code to the maintainers for consideration or building their own interface based on the official and universal API that all interfaces use.
  Essentially the official app is official only because of who maintains it - it has just as much privilege and the same access as the other apps and interfaces, and that's why the app is not called "The Lemmy App" but rather "Jerboa for Lemmy"
  Thee official web interface is official and named "Lemmy-UI" not only because of the maintainers but also because it's bundled with the standard instance backend code - you set up a standard Lemmy instance package, it comes with "Lemmy-UI" as it's basic interface, alongside thus it also includes additional tools and access for instance admins to use to administer the instance while it's running. (Defederation and Federation settings, wether to enabled downvoted, 2FA and many other settings)

It's just sad to see how far reddit has fallen.
- Eh I wouldn’t call it sad. Reddit is literally just a forum hosting site. The fact you and I are posting here is proof that there are many other avenues for random people to communicate ideas to each other.
  
  Yes, but all of that knowledge available in one place, all extremely easy to navigate through conventional search engines or pushshift-based ones… it’s going to take a lot to rebuild that here (and maybe even more for search engines to understand how to properly index fediverse pages). All because a greedy ass started idolizing the most self-centered person alive.

enshittification

I'd like to say i'm surprised but i'm really not and i doubt anyone else here is.

Abelist fucks over there.

Spez is such an ableist fascist who is so delusional in his own ego that all the lawsuits and low valuation of reddit will most likely come as a shock to him.

I’m curious how accessible Lemmy is to users who need to use assistive technology, and whether the many 3rd party app developers are making their apps accessible.
- The nice thing about open source is that motivated developers can fill out whats needed.
  In for-profit companies there's always some money-making feature that kicks accessibility down the road. The way I get my work colleagues to give a fuck is to remind them that most blind people aren't born that way, some circumstance causes the blindness - and therefore any one of them could end up on the other side of the fence begging for basic access one day, so act accordingly now.
  
  It's kind of terrible that you have to argue like that. I mean shouldn't the very fact that you can be born blind be a great argument for accessibility?
  After all, any of them could have drawn that number in the birth lottery.
- Actually, open-source software can be great for accessibility and I've been testing Lemmy with a screen reader.
  Overall Lemmy is pretty close right now once a few roadblocks are removed. The audio captcha was broken, I helped fix that in the code just a couple of days ago but it hasn't been released yet (at least not in lemmy.world).
  After that I mostly see more subtle issues, not complete deal breakers. I haven't started looking at moderator features, though.
- I'm not sure about the current offerings, but I think former Reddit apps transitioning to Lemmy (such as Sync) should retain any accessibility compatibility/features they had.

So dumb.
PS - It's quite awful reading reddit after being here. I uninstalled RES, and good lord reading the comment chains now is ghastly.

BRACE YOURSELF!
ADA lawsuit incoming.

The incompetency would be hilarious if not for the fact that it's actively harmful to online communities

Wow, why am I surprised... They said they were going to keep accessibility for the blind, but it sucks so bad, it's useless.

I never moderated a sub, but I am legally blind. Apollo had fantastic accessibility options while the official offering is garbage and makes using Reddit not only less enjoyable, but down right uncomfortable for some of us.
When the announcement came that Apollo was shutting down, I uninstalled and wiped my Reddit account. It's been over a month now.
My only issue is I haven't found an iOS app for kbin yet. So I'm basically just using the web version on PC.
- There is a list of all the Lemmy apps here: https://lemmy.world/post/465785
  It shows the current ones, announced apps, apps in development, etc. Across all platforms. Lots of devs have moved here from reddit, including Sync, Boost and Slide.
  From what I've read from other users Wefwef is supposed to be very similar to Apollo, so you could try that one.
  I hope you find what you're looking for!
  
  Amazing! I appreciate that. Thank you.

They should sue under ADA
- Now I'm starting to wonder that's why they let red reader continue. Omg...

Is this legal in the US?
- The US courts are currently split on this. The 9th and 11th circuits hold that a business website must correspond to a physical business to enforce the ADA on them. The 1st Circuit has required fully online businesses to also have ADA accessible websites.