The r/Blind subreddit is a community and resource for blind people to discuss the issues they face, help them get tips on tools and apps to use, and ask questions. It’s an invaluable resource for people looking to navigate their life and find community. Reddit just cut them out. The Reddit app is so inaccessible the company offered to waive the API pricing fees for accessibility-focused third party apps, though this hasn’t been explained well and isn’t consistently working. Apps with better accessibility than the first party app and a large feature set, like Apollo, were not given this leeway. On top of that, Reddit’s app has gotten worse for accessibility in their attempt to add accessibility, introducing new bugs.
As a result, blind Reddit users can no longer moderate their own subreddit.
Blind Moderators Need Assistance Moderating their Subreddit
Blind users cannot even moderate the r/Blind subreddit completely or easily. This is thanks to terrible and buggy accessibility features in the official Reddit app, as well as a poorly designed website. In a post on the subreddit, moderators shared the state of their moderation tools, and it seems as though they’ll be incapable of completely moderating their subreddit unless Reddit makes drastic changes.
“What now for r/Blind?”
“The subreddit will continue operating under the care and stewardship of its visually impaired and sighted moderators.”
“Let us be clear: r/Blind cannot be moderated by blind people.”
The post also claims that “Reddit has a single path forward.” They point out that Reddit needs to hire a Certified Professional of Web Accessibility (CPWA). For reference, I’ve taken some accessibility certification classes, it was required for all engineers at my previous job. This isn’t a big ask at most companies, but despite being over a decade old, Reddit hasn’t done this.
The moderators want Reddit to create a “Chief Accessibility Officer” role to help ensure the site is accessible and the company can hire certified engineers and direct the product design to one that is accessible.They want a point of contact to discuss issues of accessibility. The moderators of the r/Blind subreddit also ask that at least lead developers are certified as Web Accessibility Specialists (WAS) or, preferably, fully certified as a CPWA. One ask is a closed-captioning system for videos for the deaf and deafblind users of Reddit.
More Attention for Accessibility Required
“As u/MostlyBlindGamer explained to Reddit admins in modmail, “disability” is an interaction between a person’s physical or mental characteristics and society’s barriers. Your website’s barriers. You are making people disabled by breaking your website and apps. Your organization’s unwillingness and/or inability to hire actual experts is what’s making people disabled.”
Accessibility needs to be a priority at companies. When it comes to tech, people are not disabled, poor design makes some people disabled. It’s a choice: either create design with barriers or without them. Developers and designers have to consider contrast ratios in light and dark modes, landscape and portrait orientations, readouts for everything on screen, expected tab ordering, mouse and arrow key control, popups, readout priorities, and much more. It’s an incredibly involved process and best when baked directly into every step of the development process, not an afterthought. I’m glad Reddit is being held to the flame for their poor handling of accessibility, and hope to see it at other companies as well.