March 11 2021 GM

From TCU Wiki
Glitter Meetups

Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the Internet Freedom community at the IFF Square on the IFF Mattermost, at 9am EST / 2pm UTC. Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one here.

Upcoming events

@ March 16 | Collaborative Conversation on Free Speech, Extremist Organizing & The Paradox of Intolerance https://digitalrights.formstack.com/forms/cks36

@ March 18 | Glitter Meetup: New Feminist Fund, the Numun Fund https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/March_18_2021_GM

@ March 24 | Asia Monthly Meetup https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/Asia_Monthly_Meetups

@ March 25 | Disinformation Workshop: Tools & Techniques https://digitalrights.formstack.com/forms/cks35

@ March 30 | Q&A with Circumvention Lead at Tor About Snowflake https://digitalrights.formstack.com/forms/cks37

@ March 31 | Latin America Monthly Meetup https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/Latin_American_Monthly_Meetups

@ April 7 | Africa Meetup https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/Africa_Monthly_Meetups

@ April 8 | Glitter Meetup: Relaynet, a tool for Internet Blackouts https://internetfreedomfestival.org/wiki/index.php/April_8_2021_GM

Community Updates

  • Russia Throttled Twitter and policied traffic to all the *t.co* domains. More information here
  • A participant is working on ZRecorder a python app that records Zoom meetings when the user doesn’t have recording privileges.

Topic of Discussion: Accessibility Knowledge

Karen Reilly is Team CommUNITY’s Accessibility Lead and you can find her as @akareilly on the IFF Mattermost.

What will you be doing in the next few months?

  • The first thing that I started with was an accessibility audit of the TeamCommUNITY website - while there are automated tools, it's important to have a human test your site too!
  • You know how there is a guide to communication at IFF? That idea is getting expanded with articles about communicating about disability
  • We will also be highlighting some good things about open source software and accessibility

What does an accessibility audit entail? What does it look like? What are the things you look for?

  • So, there are some tools like WAVE that test things like contrast and text (for low vision readers)
  • The site should be set up in a way that works with assistive tech - things like screen readers.
  • Organized documents work better for people using screen readers, and people who need to navigate with their keyboards because of physical disabilities that make using a mouse difficult
  • The audit looks, for example, at meta tags, that are important for readers that blind folks may use to navigate a website. It looks for images tag and tags attributes.
  • Alt text is a description of the picture - the TeamCommUNITY site just had the file names, like in the section about funders: "FordLogov1.jpg" is what a screen reader user hears. A sighted user sees "Ford Foundation"
  • You can use alt text in social media, too! Twitter has a setting for this

How diversity and inclusion also affects the accessibility activism world

  • One thing that is very important about disabilities and inclusion is that my (the) experience of disability isn't universal
  • Disabilities vary a lot, a person can have multiple disabilities, and disability justice can't be separated from the fight against sexism, racism, transphobia, and environmental damage.
  • Always follow the lead of the person with the disability or difference. Person-first is usually a safe bet - a person with a disability. I prefer "disabled". And people who aren't neuro-typical may not consider themselves disabled at all.

What is Disability Justice? and who are some good people to follow?

  • Disability justice, because of the history of how disabled people have been marginalised, is a fight for basic human rights.
  • Disabled people don't have marriage equality, for instance. Disabled people can be paid less than the minimum wage. And many countries like Canada restrict immigration if you're disabled!
  • Some disabilities are caused by pollution, which because of environmental racism is experienced more often by communities of color.
  • Disabled people are often surveilled because companies don't want to pay out disability claims. If a disabled person posts something on social media on a good day, they can lose their health care.
  • There is also a link between disability and police brutality
  • People to follow:
  • Hashtags to follow:
    • #CripTheVote
    • #DoctorsAreDickHeads
    • #MedTraumaChat
    • #AbledsAreWeird
    • #DisabilityTooWhite

Can you expand on how disabilities affect people's equity online? How can we get to understand this much easier?

  • Disabilities can include neurological conditions that make websites unsafe
  • Trolls will attack people with seizure disorders using flashing graphics
  • Not everyone can use a mouse - motor disabilities or limb differences can mean that they need a different interface
  • And some people need fewer distractions or simple writing to understand the text in a website
  • Someone who can't hear at all, or has problems processing speech may need captions.
  • Colors are important! It's a good practice to make sure that you're not using color alone to convey meaning.
  • One of the best ways to get it right is to include people with disabilities in the design process

Challenges and barriers experienced by the community to making our online entities more equitable

  • Unfortunately Squarespace is not designed with accessibility in mind - for example, adding alt text is different depending on how you insert the image.
    • One of the things that makes a site accessible is writing code according to best practices. Someone using an overlay for their particular needs will get better results if content and formatting aren't all mixed up in the HTML and CSS
  • There are a lot of translation tools not being accessible, thus excluding anyone using screen readers etc.

Tools & Resources

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