blind – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "blind"

Reddit Tells Protesting Mods It Will Remove Them If They Don’t Stop, As Reddit’s Subreddit For The Blind Can No Longer Be Moderated By Blind Users

from the so-much-for-democracy dept

As you’ll recall, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman whined about what he called the “landed gentry” among moderators of subreddits that were protesting his ridiculous extractive API changes. He insisted that perhaps things should be more democratic. In response, many subreddits took a vote on how subscribers to those subreddits wanted the mods to handle things, and many urged the moderators to continue protesting.

But, Huffman apparently couldn’t handle that kind of democracy. So he’s spent the last few weeks threatening mods. The ultimatums ramped up over the weekend, after Reddit made it official that protesting mods who changed their subs to be labeled as NSFW (“not safe for work” meaning no ads can show) would be removed unless they changed back.

However, Reddit has sent messages to the mods of those subreddits saying they must “immediately correct” their NSFW labeling, claiming each community “has not historically been considered NSFW nor would they under our current policies.” If the designation isn’t corrected, any moderators involved in that decision will be removed. Those mods may be “subject to additional actions,” such as losing the ability to join future moderator teams.

Much democracy, very freedom.

It appears some mods have caved, saying they don’t know what else to do. But some are still holding out.

As of Thursday evening, r/PICS had dropped the NSFW designation, along with r/military.

In an email to The Verge, a moderator for the military subreddit said that the mods decided to revert the NSFW designation because the community is a helpful resource for veterans experiencing mental health crises. The mod said that if Reddit removed the team, it could put the community at risk.

The moderators r/PICS discussed remaining NSFW and awaiting removal, but decided instead to explore “alternative ways of adhering to Reddit’s vague and contradictory mandates and policies,” a mod wrote in a Reddit DM to The Verge. “To be clear, reverting the NSFW setting technically constitutes a violation of the site-wide rules (as they are currently written), but since Reddit has insisted, we have been left with no other option.”

The mods of r/Askwomenadvice, who also received the warning, instead plan to keep the designation and potentially face removal. “Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could do a quick look at the top posts, whether it’s by week, month, year, or all time, and see that our sub is peppered with NSFW topics,” one moderator wrote. “Our ethics won’t allow us in good faith to lie to you so Reddit can make a buck. So when the sub gets turned over to whatever scab steps forward, we hope they have the decency to run it in a way that keeps you safe.”

Meanwhile, now that the API changes have been put in place, and a bunch of tools have had to shut down, moderators for the /r/blind subreddit announced that their blind mods can no longer moderate the sub.

Since the latest “accessibility” update to the Reddit app, the amount and magnitude of new accessibility related bugs has made it virtually impossible for blind mods to operate on mobile.

We have done absolutely everything we could to work with Reddit and have given them every opportunity. When they offered to host a demo of the update, we understood how little they understand about accessibility: they did not respond to a request to use the app with screen curtain on. The only fair conclusion is that they cannot use it without sight, but expect us to.

The update introduced various regressions and new bugs. This is entirely within the expectations of the mod team, given how rushed it was and how Reddit continues to demonstrate how underprepared they are to deal with accessibility.

While the group initially talked about moving elsewhere, for the time being they’re staying on Reddit, but all of the moderators on r/blind are now either sighted or visually impaired, as opposed to fully blind.

Seems like an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen, but hey, Huffman wants his IPO, so why not just toss out the blind moderators who are causing so much trouble.

Once again, things feel ripe for someone else to step in and fill the void of the enshittified Reddit. There are, of course, already attempts in the Fediverse with Lemmy, kbin and others. I’ve seen talk of building Reddit-like functionality into other decentralized protocols like nostr and ATproto. And, I’m sure that some others are looking at jumping in as well. For all we know, in a few months, Meta may launch its own Reddit competitor as well, just as they’ve slipped into the microblogging world with Threads.

Filed Under: accessibility, blind, nsfw, protests, steve huffman
Companies: reddit

from the about-time dept

Most people would agree that those who are blind or visually impaired deserve all the help they can get. For example, the conversion of printed materials to accessible formats like Braille, large print, or Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) formats, ought to be easy. Who could possibly object? For years, many publishers did; and the reason – of course – is copyright. For example, publishers refused to allow Braille and other accessible editions to be shared between different countries:

while the ONCE library in Spain has more than 100,000 titles in accessible formats and Argentina has over 50,000, these titles cannot be shared with the 19 Spanish-speaking countries across Latin America. Similarly, some years ago, charities working in five English-speaking countries, including the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the UK and Vision Australia, were obliged to produce five identical Braille master files for the same Harry Potter book, costing them valuable time and money.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) described the situation back in 2012:

Copyright protections create barriers for people with disabilities, yet big publishers continue to block efforts to create exceptions to remedy the problem even as hundreds of millions of people would stand to benefit worldwide. In the US alone, those with print disabilities represent 30 million people. According to an estimate by the World Health Organization, there are about 285 million visually impaired people in the world, and 90% of those are in the developing world.

Later that same year (2012), negotiations finally began on a treaty laying down copyright exceptions and limitations that would allow those with visual impairments to convert works, and share them internationally. The World Blind Union had some modest aims for the new treaty:

Make it legal for print disabled individuals and specialist organizations to make accessible copies of published works in all countries which sign the treaty;

Make it legal for accessible books to be sent internationally without permission from publishers;

Prevent contracts with publishers from undermining copyright exceptions for print disabled people (currently they sometimes do).

Pretty reasonable, most people would say. But the EFF reported at the time that negotiators were “unable to reach a consensus on many of its most contentious issues, such as allowing exports of adapted works across borders and circumventing technological protection measures to enable accessibility”. In addition, people with hearing disabilities were “written out of the draft“, and US negotiators blocked exceptions and limitations for audiovisual works at the behest of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

It took another four years before what came to be known as the Marrakesh Treaty was agreed on and entered into force. Since then, countries around the world have been ratifying the treaty, with greater or lesser degrees of haste. One nation that has still not yet ratified the Marrakesh Treaty is South Africa. The reason given was that the country’s main Copyright Act, from 1978, prevented the government from doing so. Happily, that obstacle has finally been removed, reported here by the Oxford Human Rights Hub:

After hearing arguments from the amici on important issues of the rights of all people to freely impart and receive information and the interpretation of South Africa’s existing obligations under international human rights law and copyright law, the Pretoria High Court held that the Copyright Act is unconstitutional to the extent that it unfairly discriminates against people living with visual and print disabilities as it effectively prevents them from accessing materials under copyright.

It’s simply scandalous that in 2021 the visually impaired still need to fight in this way for their basic rights to “freely impart and receive information”. Once again, it is outdated copyright law that is to blame – together with the selfishness of publishers who view their rights to exclude people from knowledge as more important than those of the blind to access it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Story originally posted to the excellent new Walled Culture website.

Filed Under: accessibility, blind, braille, copyright, large print, marrakesh treaty, south africa, wipo

Some EU Nations Still Haven't Implemented The 2013 Marrakesh Treaty For The Blind

The annals of copyright are littered with acts of extraordinary stupidity and selfishness on the part of the publishers, recording industry and film studios. But few can match the refusal by the publishing industry to make it easier for the blind to gain access to reading material that would otherwise be blocked by copyright laws. Indeed, the fact that it took so long for what came to be known as the Marrakesh Treaty to be adopted is a shameful testimony to the publishing industry’s belief that copyright maximalism is more important than the rights of the visually impaired. As James Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), wrote in 2013, when the treaty was finally adopted:

It difficult to comprehend why this treaty generated so much opposition from publishers and patent holders, and why it took five years to achieve this result. As we celebrate and savor this moment, we should thank all of those who resisted the constant calls to lower expectations and accept an outcome far less important than what was achieved today.

Even once the treaty was agreed, the publishing industry continued to fight against making it easier for the visually impaired to enjoy better access to books. In 2016, Techdirt reported that the Association of American Publishers was still lobbying to water down the US ratification package. Fortunately, as an international treaty, the Marrakesh Treaty came into force around the world anyway, despite the US foot-dragging.

Thanks to heavy lobbying by the region’s publishers, the EU has been just as bad. It only formally ratified the Marrakesh Treaty in October of this year. As an article on the IPKat blog explains, the EU has the authority to sign and ratify treaties on behalf of the EU Member States, but it then requires the treaty to be implemented in national law:

In this case, the EU asked that national legislators reform their domestic copyright law by transposing the 2017/1564 Directive of 13 September 2017. The Directive requires that all necessary national measures be implemented by 12 October 2018. Not all member states complied by this deadline, whereby the EU Commission introduced infringement procedures against them for non-compliance. The list of the non-compliant countries is as follows:

Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, UK

The IPKat post points out that some of the countries listed there, such as the UK and France, have in fact introduced exceptions to copyright to enable the making of accessible copies to the visually impaired. It’s still a bit of mystery why they are on the list:

At the moment, the Commission has not published details regarding the claimed non-compliance by the countries listed. We cannot assume that the non-compliance proceedings were launched because the countries failed to introduce the exceptions in full, because countries can also be sanctioned if the scope of the exception implemented is too broad, so much so that it is disproportionately harmful to the interest of rightsholders. So we will have to wait and see what part of the implementation was deemed not up to scratch by the Commission.

As that indicates, it’s possible that some of the countries mentioned are being criticized for non-compliance because they were too generous to the visually impaired. If it turns out that industry lobbyists are behind this, it would be yet another astonishing demonstration of selfishness from publishers whose behavior in connection with the Marrakesh Treaty has been nothing short of disgusting.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: belgium, blind, copyright, eu, finland, france, germany, greece, italy, marrakesh treaty, poland, publishers, uk

Treaty For The Blind Comes Into Force… But US Refuses To Ratify Because Publishers Association Hates Any User Rights

from the shameful dept

For many, many, many, many years, we’ve followed the rather crazy trials and tribulations of trying to get an international treaty signed to make it easier for the blind to access copyright-covered works (basically requiring countries to allow visually-impaired accessible versions to be reproduced and distributed). This is a treaty that people have tried to get in place for years and years and years, and it was blocked again and again — often by legacy copyright industries who flat out refuse to support any kind of agreement that could be seen as strengthening user rights, which they see (ridiculously, and incorrectly) as chipping away at copyright. Amazingly, despite a last minute push by the MPAA and the Association of American Publishers, an agreement was reached and signed in 2013, called the Marrakesh Agreement. As we noted at the time, we fully expected the legacy copyright industries to refocus their efforts on blocking ratification in the US, and that’s exactly what’s happened.

Hell, it took almost three years for the White House to finally send over the treaty to the Senate for ratification. That happened back in February, and they sent it together with another copyright-related treaty, the very troubling Beijing Treaty that creates an entirely new form of copyright for performers. So far, the Senate has moved on neither issue. However, to have the Marrakesh Treaty go into effect, it needed 20 countries to ratify it. And while the US has sat still, a few weeks ago, Canada became the 20th country to complete the ratification process. That means the agreement officially goes into effect on September 30th of this year. As the EFF noted:

That?s another significant step for a treaty that has already made some important breakthroughs as the first international treaty focused exclusively on the rights of users of copyrighted material. Typically, if user?s rights are considered at all, they?re relegated to a section on ?limitations and exceptions? or even as non-binding introductory text. In the Marrakesh Agreement, they are front and center.

That post also noted that it should be a no brainer for the US to ratify this:

United States law is already compliant with Marrakesh, but the government has not yet ratified the agreement. To do so requires a two-thirds vote from the Senate, and then a formal ratification from the President. Even at a time when passing legislation has proven exceedingly difficult, the Marrakesh Agreement would be a relatively easy and uncontroversial way to demonstrate leadership internationally and help bring books to millions of blind, visually impaired, and print-disabled people around the world.

But why hasn’t it happened? According to KEI, a group that fought hard for many years to get the agreement in place, the legacy copyright industries are working hard to block it in Congress:

The Obama Administration has asked the US Congress to ratify the treaty… but Congress has yet to act, in large part due to lobbying from the Association of American Publishers…. The AAP lobbied the Administration for changes in the U.S. ratification package, and now have asked the Congress for changes that they failed to obtain in the interagency review process. The U.S. ratification already represents compromises, including limitations of exports to countries that have ratified the treaty, a provision that currently excludes all of Africa and Europe. But the AAP continues to press for additional amendments to the ratification legislation.

This isn’t a huge surprise, the AAP more or less admitted that they would refuse to support anything that established greater user rights, since that would be seen as an attack on “their rights.” And, of course, the MPAA has also been working hard to block it, whining that this treaty could (gasp!) “affect other future treaties.”

All of that is just shameful. This is a no-brainer situation. Helping the visually impaired get access to these works is something everyone should agree is a good thing. And yet, because they’re so scared of user rights expanding in any way at all, the legacy industries have to block it.

Filed Under: blind, canada, copyright, marrakesh treaty, treaty for the blind, us, user rights, wipo
Companies: association of american publishers, mpaa

DailyDirt: Do You See What I See?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Blindness or visual impairment affects hundreds of millions of people around the world. Thankfully, cataract surgery and other treatments have reduced the effects of some vision problems, but unfortunately, there are still a few forms of blindness that aren’t very treatable. Until someone figures out how to transplant an entire eyeball (which some doctors are actually working on), here are a few other ways that might help restore some sight.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: blind, blindness, dna, health, low vision, retina, senses, stem cells, vision, visual impairment, visually impaired
Companies: retrosense therapeutics

DailyDirt: Everyone Has Blindspots

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A few years ago, there were some video demonstrations about perception and how when you’re focused on looking for one thing, you can completely miss seeing obvious other things (like a gorilla or other monkey business). People tend to rely on vision a lot (unless you’re Daredevil), but it’s not always the most reliable sense.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: blind, blindsight, eyesight, face blindness, molyneux's problem, prosopagnosia, senses, transcranial magnetic stimulation, vision

from the let's-see-how-this-goes dept

It’s not clear why it’s taken this long, but late Wednesday, the White House sent two WIPO treaties over to the Senate for ratification: The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled — usually just called “The Marrakesh Treaty” or “The Marrakesh Treaty for the Blind” — and the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, usually just called “The Beijing Treaty.” The Beijing Treaty was completed in 2012. The Marrakesh Treaty in 2013. It’s not clear why it took the White House until 2016 to move on them, but such is life.

We covered both treaties while they were being negotiated. The Marrakesh Treaty is a good one — creating a system that carves out a place in copyright laws to make it easier for the blind and visually impaired to be able to get access to books that they might not otherwise be able to access due to copyright laws. For absolutely insane reasons, this treaty, which should have been an easy one for everyone to get behind, took basically forever. The big problem? Big copyright legacy players, such as the MPAA, are scared to death of anything that moves copyright in a direction away from more control by copyright holders. They literally flipped out at the idea of any movement towards making copyright work for the public, even blind people, so that they put on a full court lobbying press that almost worked. Thankfully, it did not. Now, we’ll see if they’re able to do the same and block the Senate from ratifying it. But, seriously, voting against the Marrakesh Treaty is basically spitting in the face of the blind. The MPAA has done some shameful stuff for many years, but if they block this, it’ll be a new low.

On the flip side, there’s the awful, stupid and unnecessary Beijing Treaty. This one creates an entirely new form of intellectual property, a sort of special copyright for performers. Remember that awful 9th Circuit ruling saying an actress had a copyright interest in her performance in a movie — the one that later (thankfully) got overturned? Part of Judge Kozinski’s reasoning in his decision was the Beijing Treaty — which, obviously, hadn’t even been ratified yet. Kozinski pointing to the Beijing Treaty was ridiculous for a whole variety of reasons, but with the White House now supporting ratification, things may get even more ridiculous.

Under this treaty, Hollywood, and Hollywood actors in particular, will likely be getting their very own form of copyright, which almost certainly means that ratifying the treaty will lead to new copyright laws that are even more restrictive. It will allow performers to deny the ability to make use of any sort of performance they were in, even if they don’t (as they usually don’t) hold a copyright in that work. It also expands certain definitions in ways that are incompatible with US copyright law, including an explicit “making available” right (something Hollywood has wanted for ages) and broadening the concept of “moral rights” for actors. While many other countries recognize moral rights (which let copyright holders deny uses they disagree with), the US has rejected them in all but a few limited areas (mainly visual artists). And, finally, the agreement includes anti-circumvention provisions, basically expanding that already ridiculously problematic concept, so that someone breaking DRM in a way that violates someone’s “performance rights,” even if for otherwise legal purposes, such as commentary and criticism, may be breaking the law.

You may be wondering why Hollywood is such a big supporter of this, since it actually will hand more monopoly rights to performers — people Hollywood has a history of screwing over. Well, it’s because the agreement does allow (of course it does!) the transfer of such rights from performers to producers. So, guess what will go into every Hollywood movie and TV contract? The performers will fork over their rights, and the big Hollywood studios will end up with yet another form of monopoly control to silence people. And, with it will come all these neat little presents that Hollywood has always wanted in regular copyright law, that it might now be able to force through via the ratification of this treaty.

Both of these agreements are big deals — but in different ways. I’m guessing the reason they’re moving forward together is that it’s something of a tradeoff for the MPAA. They “allow” the blind to get a few more rights, while secretly chuckling all the way to the bank as they get a massive expansion in copyright via the audiovisual treaty. Hopefully, there will actually be a big public discussion about both of these, and the Senate realizes that the Marrakesh Treaty is necessary, while the Beijing Treaty is dangerous and should not be supported.

Filed Under: beijing treaty, blind, copyright, fair use, marrakesh treaty, performer's rights, ratification, senate, treaties, white house, wipo
Companies: mpaa

DailyDirt: Restoring Sight

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The visually impaired are a sizable group of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Some vision problems are easily corrected with glasses or contacts or various kinds of laser-based eye surgery. However, some retinal problems are much more difficult (or impossible) to treat. Retinal surgery isn’t fun at all, but it can be the preferred option when given the choice between blindness and some amount of vision. Check out a few of these developments that could help people see a little bit more.

Bionic eyes are going to take a long time to develop, so in the meantime, check out this holiday gift guide for some awesome deals at the Techdirt deals store.

Filed Under: artificial retinas, blind, blindness, contact lenses, low vision, prosthetic retina, retinal implant, vision, visually impaired

DailyDirt: Helping The Blind With Technology

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We’ve seen some early-stage advances for ways that might help restore sight to people with low vision (or no vision), but it will take many more years before the clinical trials and safety approvals are complete. And not everyone will want to undergo an eye surgery to try to regain some vision, either. Fortunately, robots and wearable technology continue to improve, and these gadgets could become very useful for the blind (and the rest of us, too). Maybe we won’t just see telecommuting iPads for remote workers — but also robot assistants for casual and everyday uses, as well.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: baxter, blind, haptics, low vision, robots, smartcane, smartring, tools, visually impaired, wearables
Companies: tactile navigation tools

DailyDirt: Everything Will Recognize You

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Cameras are everywhere. High resolution image sensors are getting really small, and they’re not just in smartphones anymore. Some folks used to joke about combining cameras with all kinds of gadgets/appliances, but it’s not really a joke anymore. Maybe your toaster doesn’t have a camera yet, but there could be a microwave oven or refrigerator with some crazy sensors in your kitchen someday. Big Brother might be an internet of things.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, biometrics, blind, camera, facial recognition, internet of things, iot, iris recognition, iris scanner, sensors, visually impaired