Dear Editor,
All I could think as I read this article about the U.S. Department of Justice suing H&R Block was “must we drag every single aspect of modern life to the lowest common denominator?”
This is one of the reasons why the United States is losing it place as the world leader for innovation. The blind have plenty of ways to get their taxes done, but we’re now forcing a company to spend money so that a handful of blind people can use the internet to file their taxes?
(I assume many would rather not use the internet for this purpose).
This could stop companies from even making such services available. Could FitsNews web site be accessible to the blind, for example? I thought it foolish to require YouTube to caption all of its videos when that was first mentioned but now someone could probably file a lawsuit and end up closing down YouTube (I am “hearing impaired” and even I disagree with such a notion).
What is next, having to carry people to the top of mountains because they are scared of heights and get dizzy? Dive boats that have to put people in submersibles because the y have a hard time “clearing” their ears? Forcing dive shops to provide prescription dive masks for people that wear glasses? This is utter nonsense and the suit should be summarily dismissed and the lawyer beaten with the judge’s gavel.
-Anonymous
SIC SEZ
Agreed. I like the cut of your jib. Thanks for sharing the link and your thoughts …
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9 comments
I’m going to write my comment in braille so all the blind people can read it.
:::.:::… :::…. :::::…. …:.:.:.:
:::::::….. ::::…… :…. ::::
I get goosebumps just reading it.
:)
About two lines down, the third word is mispeled
Should read ……….
If Terry Schiavo was able to comment, she’d say “……..”
Text To Speech can’t read everything, I’d imagine it would be annoyingly difficult to set up tax preparation websites/software to play nice with whatever TTS software a blind person uses.
H&R Block should just do a nice guy thing and charge blind people their online rate at an actual H&R Block location, thus no need to adapt their site. Not sure that would satisfy the DoJ though.
Assuming that people with disabilities can actually get to an H&R Block location, and are not in fact completely reliant on technology, as is often the case? It’s not about satisfying the DoJ, the DoJ is merely enforcing what is correct.
I gather this writer is oblivious to section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 AND the Americans with Disability Act signed into law by George H. W. Bush.
I also gather that this writer knows no one with any kind of disability. And, has absolutely no empathy for anyone who does. Not to mention a sense of right and wrong and equal justice.
In other words, this writer is the lowest common denominator of modern American life.
But, he does indulge in the intellectual masturbation that passes for real intelligence in the right wing.
Utter offensive illegal garbage. The person who wrote this does not have the FAINTEST idea of what is involved in web accessibility. Nor does the person talking about ‘whatever text to speech technology they might use’. That is not how web accessibility works.
“Could FitsNews web site be accessible to the blind, for example?” Yes! More to the point, why would it ever cross your mind that it couldn’t? Because you have no idea what you are taking about perhaps?
Try looking at the HTML code for the editorial images, they contain an alt atribute describing the image, for example “sic speaking”. This text is read out by STANDARDISED software used by people with low vision. As is all of the HTML text on the page.
Just to be 100% clear: the vast majority of web accessibility is extremely easy. Build your site using proper standards based code and you’re almost completely there already. It is not in any way “annoyingly difficult” for a tax prep site to be blind accessible.. unless you’re a terrible coder who has written everything back to front, it’s already pretty much there. That’s what people get annoyed about – unnecessary exclusion. And luckily the law all over the world is completely on their side. As for catering for disabilities meaning America is losing it’s edge – HAH! such jokes. Due to it not having signed the UNCRPD, America actually has one of the most backwards levels of commitment to provision for people with disability of any country in the world.