March 13, 2024

Digital accessibility & inclusivity

A few examples of issues hindering digital accessibility and inclusivity

• usage of .docx files excludes those who are not comfortable accepting terms and conditions of Microsoft Inc.
• usage of Telegram and Signal excludes those who are not comfortable signing terms and conditions of Telegram/Signal or using Telegram/Signal’s servers
• usage of Google Suite (or any other SaaS really) for surveys, documents, spreadsheets - and much more - excludes those who are not comfortable accepting terms and conditions of Alphabet Inc. or using Alphabet’s servers
• usage of HTML in newsletters excludes those who can only display emails in plain text
• restricting members, employees et al. from working locally, that is on their computer and without being connecting to the internet, but instead forcing people to run office applications a third party server
• storing of personal details of members/clients/users on the servers of a company that is a digital glebe - without seeking consent of users first
• company hosting mailboxes of an organisation requiring users to run JavaScript in the browser to log in to the webmail interface¹
• doctors or health practitioners who nudge patients to make appointments through a digital glebe e.g. a entering their data on a website that is a digital glebe²
• premises requiring people to have a mobile application and an internet connection to unlock doors or identify themselves

Feel free to email me examples you’d like to add to that list: https://yctct.com/contact.

Suggestions for fostering digital accessibility and inclusivity

• use file formats which specifications are freely distributed e.g. .odt instead of .docx³
• use software which is freely distributed⁴ and copyleft-licensed⁵ e.g. LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Word
• use servers you have agency over e.g. the server of cooperative e.g. Codeberg e.V. or hostsharing e.G. instead of the servers of companies like Gandi SAS, Hetzner GmbH or Amazon.com Inc.
• use software which can federate i.e. which instances can interoperate e.g. email or XMPP instead of Telegram or Signal⁶
• prioritise running software locally (i.e. on your own computer) rather than the computer of someone else
• do not link or integrate trackers or SDKs or other code snippets stemming from digital glebes⁷
• run software on machines running a freely distributed operating system e.g. GNU/Linux Trisquel⁸
• prioritise using plain text (along with syntax like Markdown⁹ for example)
• following what we think is morally right rather than thinking that abiding by the laws is enough

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1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.01051.pdf↩︎

2. https:technofeudalism.fyi↩︎

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_file_formats↩︎

4. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html↩︎

5. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#copyleft↩︎

6. https://lwn.net/Articles/687294/↩︎

7. https://technofeudalism.fyi↩︎

8. https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html; Ubuntu and Debian GNU/Linux are both composed of binary blobs, i.e. proprietary (as in non-free; which usage is restricted) software↩︎

9. To learn more about Markdown see https://yctct.com/markdown↩︎

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I do self-funded research and I'm writing a book.

> What's the book about?

About technologies and agency.

Meaning, technologies can foster agency. No doubt. But I am also asking:

Can usage of technologies give us a sense of empowerment while in fact undermining our abilities?

I posted a summary of the prologue on the homepage: https://yctct.com/

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