To avoid being censored by social media platforms, some people intentionally misspell words or replace letters with symbols or numbers. This causes confusion and problems for screen reader users, people with cognitive and reading disabilities, and people learning the language.
Looks like the admin is pushing out the new rule change of Title II of ADA another year, likely to give them more time to fully de-teeth it or roll it back altogether public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-07663.pdf
In today's "This sucks" news, it looks like Title II of the ADA is being extended by a year. Are we surprised? No. No we are not.
www.linkedin.com/posts/sherib...
A 1-year deadline extension for state and local government compliance with ADA Title II on the web is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on April 20th.
Population > 50k now = April 26, 2027
Population < 50k now = April 26, 2028
#accessibility #a11y
AI won't necessarily understand the context of where an image will appear, and why. Is the image decorative, functional, or meaningful? That's not something that AI will always be able to determine. The same image can be used in multiple contexts and need to have different alt text each time.
You might personally choose not to use AI, but you might not have a choice as to whether your team or office uses it. If your organization is using AI to write alt text, always review it to make sure it's accurate and appropriate. AI won't necessarily understand how or why an image is being used.
This also reminds me of how @stacykess.bsky.social and I have long agreed that to get journalists on board with accessibility we need to meet them where they are, and that includes translating a lot of the technical aspects in ways that people can "get" it. As in, making the content more accessible.
This reminds me of Kai Wong's great talk at Axe-con about how accessibility presentations and materials can sometimes be anything but accessible.
www.deque.com/axe-con/sess...
I talk to beginners and newcomers to the field of accessibility all the time (by virtue of teaching through my course) and am aware of some of the "barriers" and "annoyances" they come across. Hence this statement/opinion. I hope it's received as the constructive criticism I intend it to be. ✌🏻
Being able to tell your students that you have e-mails older than them will be reason enough to keep those e-mails!
There were Google e-mail addresses back in 2001?!
And here I thought I was old school with a 2004! 😂
There are many weird things about having a GMail address since 2004. But one is finding 20-year-old e-mails about my friends' weddings. Some of their kids are graduating from high school next month. It's weird to be able to think, "I have e-mails older than legal adults."
What a time to be alive.
Tucker Carlson: "It's vile. It begins w/ a promise to use the US military to commit a war crime. Those people who are in direct contact w/ the president need to say 'No. I'll resign. I'll do whatever I can do legally to stop this, bc this is insane. And if given the order, I'm not carrying it out'"
Donald Trump is deranged. He must be impeached and removed from office.
Republicans who don’t stop him will have blood on their hands, and anyone who carries out an order to bomb civilian targets will be complicit in war crimes and will be held accountable.
Calling for the erasure of a civilization is dangerous and unhinged coming from any leader, let alone an American President. It is not a tactic. It is not a joke.
America is not at war with the Iranian people. (1/2)
When your experience of the web has only been visual, it's really easy to say that the underlying code doesn't matter.
Perennial reminder.
It's no surprise that breaking news leads to a flood of memes across social media. As you share memes about the big news story of the day (and let's face it, many are meme-ing it), remember alt text.
If you've never written alt text for memes, this resource from Veronica Lewis will help you.
indie businesses sending emails saying they’re closing as a gag that you don’t see until you click through: no
If your organization an makes a fake April Fools' post that is designed and written to seem like a real post, be prepared for the fact that some will see the post after April 1, and will not even check the date. There are people who will trust what you've told them.
April Fools' Day is full of possible accessibility frustrations online. Creating fake content and presenting it as real content might seem funny to some organizations, but it causes confusion. The organization might think it's obvious that it's a joke, but it won't be obvious to everyone.
Meta and YouTube were both found liable by a California jury for harming a plaintiff's mental health with the design of their products. A massive ruling in a bellwether case that will open the floodgates for other lawsuits
If you're on a laptop or desktop, you can right-click on the images in Facebook or Instagram to see the alt text. The A.I.-generated alt text is always couched with "May be" language. "May be an image of standing" or "May be an image of text."
It's vague and useless.
Facebook post from Darryl Moen: George Kennedy, a beloved professor, managing editor and assistant dean and my compatriot at the Missouri school of journalism for 40 years, dies today of complications of Parkinson’s disease. I will miss him.
For those who hadn’t seen: George Kennedy, a mentor and friend to generations of Mizzou journalism students, died yesterday. He was my boss at the Columbia Missourian for just a little more than a year and remains one of the most influential people in my life.
I finally read @nicolas-steenhout.com's most recent newsletter, and oof, it is good.
"This is invisible labor. Disabled people perform constant work just to participate. We explain. We educate. We request. We justify. We repeat the whole process. Over and over. Because we have to. It burns us out."
Also see: using numbers for letters or asterisks to obfuscate words (which also breaks muted word lists).
Intentional misspellings of words for memes (and other things) can confuse people. This includes people with cognitive and reading disabilities, and those learning the language. Depending on how much the word is misspelled, screen readers might not pronounce it like the actual intended word.
I still remember the wood table one from Chicago!
If you're at @ire.org's NICAR, don't forget alt text on images you share in social media posts. If you're fuzzy on alt text best practices, @stacykess.bsky.social, @emiliaruzicka.bsky.social, and have a session tomorrow followed by another session where they will dig deeper.
#NICAR26 #NICAR2026
And if you need more incentive to go to this session, yes, we'll be providing some kind of goodies.
That's all I'm saying.
#NICAR26 #Accessibility #AltText
schedules.ire.org/nicar-2026/#...
