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Big Media’s lobbyists have been running a smear campaign trying to paint the Internet Archive as a greedy big tech operation bent on stealing books—which is totally absurd. If you’ve ever used the WayBack Machine, listened to their wonderful archives of live music, or checked out one of their 37 million texts, it’s time to speak up. On March 20, everyone is showing their support for the Internet Archive during oral arguments.

Here's how you can help:

The Internet Archive is our library, a massive collection of knowledge and culture accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Don't let greedy publishers burn down the next Library of Alexandria!

And if you're absolutely certain you don't use or need the Internet Archive, take a look at their projects first, you might be surprised. Those are all at risk too.

TLDR; don’t give tumblr money until they start making visible improvements towards accessibility

I’ve seen a few posts around about something people are calling crab day where you’re supposed to gift the crab button to your mutuals to support Tumblr financially. Please don’t participate in this unless Tumblr starts making noticeable improvements towards accessibility between now and then. It’s been 5 months of me trying to get the bare minimum of accessibility for photosensitive users or even just find out who I can talk to to get anywhere, and Tumblr is refusing to make any changes.

@photomatt has doubled down on the suggestion that you should just pay for ad-free or install an ad-blocker instead of listening to any of the suggestions photosensitive users have repeatedly made. Please do not give money to Tumblr until they show a commitment to accessibility because they will continue to ignore our requests if it doesn’t impact them financially.

Some of the requests we’ve made are:

1. Allow us to disable autoplay on browser as well as the app. This is an accessibility feature, not a data-saving feature, and should be treated as such.

2. Include ads in disabling of autoplay, along with other formats that currently get around the autoplay feature. Currently even if you have autoplay disabled you can still end up with flashing lights in your face every few posts from ads.

3. Improve the reporting process for strobing ads. The quick reporting process doesn’t provide good options to ensure the person reviewing the report realizes that it’s being reported for flashing lights so you have to hope they agree it’s either malicious or offensive and don’t just brush you off as abusing the report function. The more complicated reporting process involves getting a screenshot and the link that the ad brings you to, which requires lingering on the ad, which if you’re trying to report the ad for your safety, is dangerous. You can also still get the same ad 10 times a row after reporting it until it’s been reviewed. Which again, presents a danger to users.

4. Add a community label for flashing lights. Flashing lights are commonly untagged or mistagged, even sometimes maliciously. It would be extremely helpful to the photosensitive community to be able to add a warning to a post that doesn’t have one.

I’ve talked a lot about the photosensitive community in this post because that’s what I have personal experience with and what @photomatt has explicitly come out and just said to buy ad-free about, but there are definitely other accessibility issues that need to be addressed as well (like the alt text function needing improvements to make it accessible to users who need it and don’t use screenreaders, or the fact that a lot of tumblr official stuff still doesn’t seem to use the alt text feature themselves). Please feel free to add on accessibility issues I’ve missed in the reblogs.

Rise of the Pink Ladies was nominated for choreography Emmy this week. You cannot legally watch an Emmy-nominated show because god forbid the studio has to pay workers for it—that’s the state of the industry with streaming right now. That’s why SAG and the WGA are striking.

i feel like we dont talk enough about how distressing and disturbing memory loss issues are. forgetting what you were talking about halfway through a sentence, putting something down and instantly forgetting where you put it. having to reread one paragraph over and over again because by the time youve moved onto the next sentence you dont remember what the one before it said. always doubting if your memories of things are real, not being able to remember important life events.

its so incredibly scary, it feels like your mind is constantly playing tricks on you and you start to doubt whats real and what isnt.

“i forgot” is treated like a lazy excuse when it’s genuinely such a big issue for so many people.

I fucking love these videos

This is un-𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐-acceptable. The vending machine, broke, and robbed me of my 𝓉𝓌𝑜 𝓆𝓊𝒶𝓇𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈 and now I can't work properly without my 𝓕𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓸 𝓛𝓪𝔂𝓼™. I wanna (𝔰𝔦𝔯) speak to your manager (𝖘𝖎𝖗) 𝙞𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮!

🅂🄸🅁, hello? Does somebody need a new prescription for their 𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬? I'm a security guard, not a vending machine guy.

Oh, 𝕛𝕖𝕖𝕫𝕖! I'm so-ɦօ sorry, if you're not the 𝓿𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓶𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓰𝓾𝔂, then, 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 🄵🅄🄲🄺 𝔦𝔰? Because all I see is you ⓟⓐⓝⓢⓨ-⃝ⓐⓢⓢ 𝐛𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭-𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬 loafin' around everywhere, like, are any of you NPCs programmed with 𝕒𝕟𝕪 bit of responsibility? 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭?

What's a 𝚖𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚊ꜰᴜᴄᴋᴀ 𝔞𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔡 𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝖌𝖔𝖙𝖙𝖆 𝖉𝖔 to ⒼⒺⓉ ⓈⓄⓂⒺ 🅵🆁🅸🆃🅾-

Disability pride month reminder that "unmedicated by choice" DOES NOT mean "doesn't have problems" or "can perfectly handle their problems all the time while unmedicated." It is, more often than not, a choice we make knowing that it'll be difficult and accepting those difficulties as preferable to the difficulties we had while on medication. It's not a choice everyone can make or should make but those who make it deserve the respect you'd give any other disabled person's relationship with medication

Some people are unmedicated because they're allergic.

Or because they're in a certain "risk group" and could get a stroke, heart attack, thrombosis, or other complications, so it's unsafe to even try it.

Sometimes side effects were too severe and there's no other medication available.

Or it's just that they felt too uncomfortable and rather try without meds to avoid feeling how they felt under their former medication.

Maybe their meds were alright but still they rather don't want to take them.

No matter what, it's not our business, and honestly I have the deepest respect for people who are off meds, no matter the reason.

Maybe their meds were

alright but still they rather

don’t want to take them.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.