Good evening,
It's been a while. A whole month has passed (sorry), but in that time, a few new faces have signed up to this little corner of the internet. Welcome.
You probably saw this when you signed up, but this is the place to be for the latest on all things accessibility, social media and technology.
In this issue:
What's going on with UK television and its shoddy subtitles?
YouTube's axing of community captions - one year on
Brand new Spaces features
And much more!
Just keep scrolling...
🗞️ Read A11y 'bout it!
Little Mix concert promoter discriminated against Deaf parents, judge rules — limpingchicken.com
A concert promoter was found to have discriminated against three Deaf mothers by failing to provide an interpreter for support acts at a 2017 Little Mix concert, according to a county court judge - proving once again that you cannot 'pick and mix' access. Access should be provided throughout/in full.
TikTok finally rolls out auto captions in the UK — newsroom.tiktok.com
It's been a long time coming, and while they're far from perfect, TikTok has at last made captions available for users in the UK. It's part of a staggered launch, it seems, with places such as Canada and New Zealand getting it in recent days. Why it needed such a delayed UK release, however, I don't know. Why couldn't it be released globally, from the very start?
Without meaningful allyship, hearing people are doomed to poor Deaf awareness — rootedinrights.org
It's to my shame that I didn't do a newsletter around International Week of Deaf People (IWDP), but I did write something for the folks over at Rooted in Rights on how hearing people need to do more to promote accessibility which is both meaningful and impactful.
Xbox unveils a load of new accessibility features — www.eurogamer.net
Microsoft held an Xbox Accessibility Showcase to show off some new tools coming to the games console soon. One of them concerns a new Accessibility spotlight page to highlight games which are accessible, and I hope this shows developers that inclusive games can only increase their reach and sales, given how big the 'purple pound' is.
Twitter is considering being like Facebook and using full-width pics — techcrunch.com
There could be no more blank space on Twitter, as the platform confirms it is testing pictures which cover the whole width of your phone (much like what Facebook and Instagram already do at the moment). I don't have much of an opinion on this from an accessibility perspective, other than the fact if images on our timelines are getting even bigger, let's make sure they come with alt text, yeah?
Wembley Stadium guarantees sign language interpretation for every show — twitter.com
Working with Performance Interpreting, the venue will make every show available with sign language interpretation, removing the need to pre-book or attend specific performances. Accessibility leads to flexibility, and consumer choice is a valuable thing.
GoFundMes may soon be available in Twitter's Tip Jar — twitter.com
Given that disabled people have to set up GoFundMes to pay for wheelchairs and other assistive equipment, and LGBTQ+ people (some of which are disabled) also launch crowdfunders for medical procedures, having the option to donate to fundraisers in Twitter's Tip Jar feature is an excellent move from the platform.
🟣 Spaced out
The Twitter Spaces team have been cranking out updates left, right and centre over the past few weeks, and now, they appear to be rolling out some long-awaited features - including an early concept design for recorded Spaces.
The good news? A Twitter engineer has confirmed that transcripts will be available with recorded Spaces, just like they are for live Spaces.
Let's not forget that it won't just be Deaf and hard of hearing people who benefit from this, but Spaces hosts looking to share recordings on third-party platforms. It's another reminder that accessibility benefits everyone.
And in other news: Host Reconnect plans to solve the problem of Spaces which are brought to a rather abrupt halt due to Internet connectivity issues, or phones unexpectedly dying on us. Host Reconnect sets to eliminate the administrative burden and cognitive load that can come with setting up a Space - especially for the second time.
Channel 4 and Channel 5 experience subtitling and audio description issues — limpingchicken.com
Fire suppression systems at Red Bee Media, which provides broadcast services to Channel 4 and Channel 5, were triggered on 25 September, and now both channels have been marred with accessibility issues. The confusion and anxiety caused to Deaf and disabled people is a common sentiment experienced in moments of inaccessibility, and it should be prevented as much as possible. The fact that Red Bee are providing limited statements on the ongoing issue - and no one is telling us when we can expect the problems to be fixed - is damning.
🚫 Contrasting messages
If you're going to do a marketing campaign tackling bullying and thus promote the opposite of inclusion, then you should probably make sure that your social media content is accessible to everyone. Sadly for Nationwide, they did just that with the above video, showing white and yellow captions almost camouflaged against a pale background, making them completely impossible to read.
When I pointed this out to their team, I was told they would pass it on to the marketing department - only for them to release another inaccessible version of the ad days later.
Inaccessibility and ignoring access requests can send out the wrong message during your advertising campaign. Don't let it sidetrack your key objectives; make your content accessible.
Heck, it wasn't the only social media accessibility blunder in recent weeks either. The hate-filled, disaster-prone GB News decided to mark International Week of Deaf People by inviting a Deaf person on to talk about panto, only for them to share the video online with no subtitles or an interpreter. Smashing(!)
Then the UK Government decided to join in the inaccessible fun too, posting a video from a Downing Street press conference where the sign language interpreter is cut off completely. Not the best move considering they were recently found to have breached the Equality Act by not providing appropriate Deaf access for those briefings, but hey ho...
YouTube’s Community Captions replacement still isn’t ready – a year after they were axed — liamodell.com
YouTube deprecated its community contributions feature, which allowed viewers to submit captions and translations for videos on a creator's channel, on 28 September 2020. Its promised replacement, captions permissions, still isn't ready. Why? As Rikki Poynter tells me in this piece, the community captions should have been kept in place while work was underway on captions permissions. The current Amara subscription offering isn't a perfect solution either. They've had a year, and with the exception of Covid, what's the hold-up?
🤦🏻♂️ Simulation is appropriation
Earlier this week, I read a story from Northern Ireland about a group of non-disabled people wheeling around in wheelchairs for 24 hours to raise money for charity. Hopefully, I don't need to take up too much of my precious word count to explain why that is an absolutely terrible idea.
As listed in the above tweet, things such as The Whisper Challenge and other social media/marketing campaigns don't serve any other purpose other than to generate pity, in some weird display of pity porn. Our disabilities, our lived experiences, are reduced to nothing more than fun little 'games' and 'challenges' to overcome, to truly 'understand' what life is like as a disabled person today.
But we don't need non-disabled people to carry out a simulation in order for them to understand the barriers we disabled people face every single day. Instead, it's as easy as simply listening to us. The existence of a disability-themed game or challenge is proof that we're still yet to reach the point where disabled people's experiences are accepted and understood at face value.
It has to change. Now.
👋🏻 See you on 15 October!
It's not quite fortnightly, but it'll get us back on track. I'll be back in your inboxes next Friday with the latest accessibility news.
In the meantime, you can continue the conversation with me over on my Twitter, @LiamODellUK.
Have a good week!
Liam