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A blast from the past:
When this image of the Shoyeido Incense Company's storefront in Kyoto, Japan was taken way back in 1907, the company was already some 200 years old.
For a little Western history context, at the time of Shoyeido's founding, England's Queen Anne was just getting around to knighting Sir Isaac Newton, and the American colonies were still decades away from establishing independence.
ICE is terrible etc and also, white Europeans and white Americans are finally learning what your countries do to brown and black people / has been doing to / have always been doing to / still do to
No individual should have to suffer this sort of inhumanity; I hope all of this galvanizes you to speak up against inhumane immigration detention for *all* people
This entry was edited (Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 4:34 PM)
that ICE and the administration are now doing this to white Europeans is certainly an escalation, but the fundamental problem is, and always has been, that it does this to anyone.
And so long as it retains the ability to do this to anyone, no one is safe. I really, really hope that is made abundantly clear to everyone, because as long as ICE, the infrastructure behind it, the the ideology that led to its creation and current status exist, it will be bad. People will be harmed.
I desperately hope people don’t just take a few token white people being released (if that happens) and move on…
@Adrianna Tan Also, this racism / xenophobia ruins the immigration system for everyone. Just try getting a UK spousal visa for your partner without being wealthy and/or spending months to years apart. It's nigh-on impossible.
amen. it's concerning that they're doing this to Germans and Brits now, sure, but what's much more concerning is the way their ability to act punitively has been expanded against people like Mahmoud Khalil, who were never safe from over policing but were supposed to be permanent residents.
@impy They are going after everybody at once all the time in order to completely overwhelm the people so that they become passive and obedient. If people just keep their heads down and do as they're told, the Nazis win.
so I open the window and, foolishly, the screen because I hate window screens. Of course, a gigantic wasp flies in. So now I have a kitten-sized wasp in a deli container.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but while people often say they stick to Debian or Ubuntu based distros because they value stability, I swear it seems like I've had less issues with Arch / EndeavourOS, and I get all the latest features in a timely manner. Also, using anything but KDE now feels like downgrading from a supercar to a skateboard.
I completely agree with you about Arch. I've been using it for over 10 years with no real problems. I have a 9 year old machine that is up to date and Arch was only ever installed once.
Ubuntu has always been frought with problems. Upgrades gone terribly wrong. And so much else.
Fixes when can find them tend to be click this try that. Instead of go look at this wiki page and follow the instructions.
Arch based distros have more freedom, more choice and the best doc around. Rolling releases are the best.
I'd say it's unfair to lump Ubuntu's issues with Debian. I've had systems run without issue for over a decade with Debian; only failure was due to faulty hardware. The few times I've tried Ubuntu, I've run into various issues caused by Canonical, whether UX or technical.
Most recently I installed Ubuntu on my parents desktop. They complained Firefox was closing on them randomly. Turns out snap was closing Firefox mid-use due to updates. Switched to Debian+Firefox/Flatpack, now zero complaints.
Dude gave anyone looking for forensic clues a layup
would lock every employee out of their accounts if his credentials were ever revoked, and named the code IsDLEnabledinAD, as in "Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory."
That's kind of an easy figure out: look for all the D.L.s in the company and work from there. But then
investigators subsequently found the source code for this program on an internal development server in Kentucky, and that Lu's user account had been used to execute the malware on the production box. Lu was also the only member of his team who had access privileges for that dev machine.
I would almost always prefer a smaller, cheaper option over an expensive and gargantuan portion that makes me both poorer and fatter. Thank you. #food #restaurant
"This exchange of bread and water was more than a simple act of trade; it was a testament to our humanity that refused to be stolen by the Israeli genocide... sharing what little we had and giving from our scarcity."
Doing an #introduction as I'm new to Friendica, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite ways to engage with the fediverse, and friendica.world. I'm always happy to meet people with similar interests, so feel free to boost / share!
I'm a human who loves weird art, all sorts of music (from Hindustani to Death Metal), tech, sunny days, green hills, incense, tea, spirits, soft couches, cats, and books. I'm a prolific vegan cook, and I design, code, write, play games, and produce, write, and play music for fun.
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"Since the age of Reagan, the greatest scarcity in the United States is not technical innovation, but rather the willingness to work together for the public good. It makes no sense to encourage the former at the expense of the latter."
"Since the age of Reagan, the greatest scarcity in the United States is not technical innovation, but rather the willingness to work together for the public good. It makes no sense to encourage the former at the expense of the latter."
"Since the age of Reagan, the greatest scarcity in the United States is not technical innovation, but rather the willingness to work together for the public good. It makes no sense to encourage the former at the expense of the latter."
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"For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they could not escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who could not defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men."
I’m not for a moment trying to play the victim card here, but it would be nice to have the word “some”, “many” or even “most” at the start of that statement.
I hear you! That's the post as it was found, though, as much as it would be better tweaked to not be so absolute. I hope the "some/most" is implied by the author.
Hmm, re-reading the post, though, I don't think it's meant to imply all men are awful, just that men who are good to trans women in public (are very likely to) treat cis women well in private, and vice-versa.
These millions of stories involve lost years for closeted gay people. These folks never had a high school hook-up with a real crush. They didn’t lose their virginity to someone they were actually attracted to. They didn’t share the first dance of their wedding with someone they deeply, passionately and romantically loved. And every day, they have had to present in costume; let’s call it “heterosexual drag.” They have had to perform straightness while concealing their real, human desires for the same sex.
It's taken me long enough to get here, but I'm finally realising that using an open standard file format for whatever I need to store gives me the best chance of still reading it decades later.
When creating PDFs, avoid using "Print to PDF." A screen reader user may still be able to access the text of PDFs created this way, but heading structure, alternative text, and any other tag structure will be lost. Using "Save As" or "Export" can preserve these tags.
#LabPlot is a FREE, open source and cross-platform Data Visualization and Analysis software accessible to everyone. In LabPlot your #data is yours alone!
In this short video you can learn how to quickly import your data into #LabPlot and visualize it.
@mikeTesteLinux Thanks! We are going to release a new version of LabPlot (2.12) soon. You can also check out the growing list of the post-v2.11 development news here:
At my last job I provided a testimonial quote for a SAAS social media management tool we used. Not only am I still on the website over five years later, but they somehow found my new picture and updated it on the website. I don't necessarily mind - I'm just a bit confused!
Happy to see Scribus still moving forward strongly. It's not often I've used it and I'm no designer. But it's been the most sane tool for a few tasks (various info flyers). I love this tool, but it's not been the easiest one. However, the end results has always been great after some battling.
Seeing the next version improves the user interface ... I'm starting to look forward to the next DTP challenge!
I've also used Inkscape for some graphic stuff including bitmap images. It's been a great tool as well, and sometimes the simpler Scribus tasks can be done in Inkscape - when there is not so much text.
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Reminder that you should move your email archive to another provider, preferably one in Europe, and delete everything in GMail, including in the "all mail" folder.
Then cancel the account entirely if you can, or put a permanent "vacation" message saying that your clients / organizations should not use google products for security reasons.
Also be sure and delete everything out of google drive.
Even if you do cancel the acct(s), they will not delete your data immediately, or possibly ever. You need to do it yourself.
Your data is not safe with google. They have AI crawling every bit of it, and data mine for hundreds of third parties you know nothing about, including muskrat et al.
Additionally, any online service or app you use that has an option to login with google, you should replace. They are letting google data mine your info.
I am very excited that I can use #Scribus 1.7.0 on my company-provided Windows laptop. For all the complaining people do about the pace of development, Scribus really has come along in leaps and bounds over the past few years.
As someone who is totally blind, the Fediverse is the only place where I have ever been able to follow people such as photographers, artists, or even those who post pictures of their cats or the food they ate. The reason is that most of them use alt text. They take the time to describe the images that my screen reader can't recognise. Some write the descriptions themselves, and others use tools such as altbot. Some worry that their descriptions aren't good enough, especially when they are new at this. Let me assure you, not only are they good enough, they are extremely appreciated! If the rest of the world thought as you did, it would be a much better place. Don't hesitate to ask if you're unsure of something, but never think that we don't notice your effort.
I once had to convert MBA lecturers' slides into tactile ones and describe in braille. This was Cambridge Uni so intelligent lecturers you would have thought but finally one said - I guess a picture soes paint a thousand words. My colleague then put up one slide from a lecturer and none of the others could work out what it said as it has some many graphs superimposed on each other. My sheer coincidence I was working on a bible (why it have never been done no idea) when some travelling missionaries knocked on the door. I had just got to the bit in Samuel 2 where God's chosen, King David, sent a man off to certain death in a battle so he could marry the man's wife. They went away
I really appreciate your post Georgina.Before I came here I had no idea of alt txt but now make sure it is always on my photos. I also try to spread the word outside Fediverse.
@MelSedds I didn't know what the Alt was for until an account (or maybe a bot) boosting cat pictures told me I should provide it. I've done so ever since (and edited the ones I posted before that) and besides the obvious benefit, I find creating the descriptions and sometimes giving more context great fun ☺️ (I even learned some new words when I wanted to give accurate descriptions, like calyx.)
something I’m never sure about is how much text in alt-text is too much. I generally stay as coincise as possible by describing what’s actually interesting in the image for the conversation, which may include written texts or not. Do you think vision-impaired readers may prefer a more complete description?
@lydiaschoch I find that I will put extra information in the alt text. Joke that's not in the post itself, perhaps. Pointing out what's strange in the picture. Explaining the joke. Something like it's a SPOILER tag you're only going to get if you check the alt text.
@xinit ☕ @Fedo ¶ @Lydia Schoch Wow! What a wonderful idea! Please forgive my ignorance, but is alt text something that sighted readers can see, or is it only available to screen readers? If so, this is one of the few times in which we actually get to have something that the rest of the world doesn't. If not, it's a great way to encourage sighted people to pay attention to the importance of alt text.
all the client applications i see allow anyone to see alt texts, there's a little "alt" button in the corner of the images. i think that does helps a lot for people to remember to put alt texts
@zy Some Mastodon sites offer to translate a post into the reader's language, which also translates the ALT text. As someone who likes to read posts in languages I'm not fluent with, it helps a lot to understand the pictures as well (e.g. memes or comic strips).
@zy You can also follow an alt text not that will remind you when you forget to add alt text. It just sends you a message requesting that you add alt text
on desktop web browsers, there's a tag in the corner of an image - either ALT or just a scary red exclamation mark (indicating that there's no ALT text).
If a user drags the mouse pointer over the image, the alt text is visible to sighted users. I think most mobile apps show it on a click, but I don't really remember.
The IMG ALT tag (more correctly, the ALT attribute of the IMG tag) has been a part of the HTML standard since the mid 1990s. I'm sighted. I haven't tested with a screen reader, but when looking at a Fedi post from a Web browser, the alt text is in the IMG ALT tag. Mouse over, and it just displays the alt text. Most other social networking platforms seem to put the alt text behind a "click the small ALT button and a popup will pop up" mechanism.
This entry was edited (Sunday, January 26, 2025, 4:30 PM)
I'm sighted and I often look at the alt text on Fediverse graphics!
It's great for things like "here's a person I don't recognise, are they famous, is it a clip from a show and what's the show and why is it relevant here". There are cultural references which would just whoosh over my head without the description.
Or sometimes there'll be one like "photo of woodland, with a squirrel" and I'll be like "oh yeah! there _is_ a squirrel in the corner there" 😀
@xinit @fdrc_ff @lydiaschoch Alt text is visible to sighted people. When a photo misses alt text, someone will usually jump on that and ask the poster to add. But it's sometimes the servers' fault that the alt text didn't make it across with the photo (something related to Fediverse decentralisation). I enjoy reading alt text: it tells me what the poster found interesting, where their focus is, what they want us to know. Alt text can add so much nuance to posts.
thank you for your kind words and especially thank you for making me discover altbot! It will make it easier to write alt text (but I will try to personalise it as much as I can anyway) 😀
I was always wondering "Am I trying to explain with too much detail? Is it too little? Does anyone actually ever use alt text of my images?" This post gave me all the answers I needed! Thanks! All hail fediverse 😀
Manche machen sich Sorgen, dass ihre Beschreibungen nicht gut genug sind, vor allem, wenn sie neu auf diesem Gebiet sind. Ich kann Ihnen versichern, dass sie nicht nur gut genug sind, sondern auch sehr geschätzt werden! Wenn der Rest der Welt so denken würde wie Sie, wäre es ein viel besserer Ort. Zögern Sie nicht zu fragen, wenn Sie sich bei etwas unsicher sind, aber denken Sie nicht, dass wir Ihre Bemühungen nicht bemerken.
Einige schreiben die Beschreibungen selbst, andere verwenden Tools wie altbot. Manche machen sich Sorgen, dass ihre Beschreibungen nicht gut genug sind, vor allem, wenn sie neu auf diesem Gebiet sind. Ich kann Ihnen versichern, dass sie nicht nur gut genug sind, sondern auch sehr geschätzt werden! Wenn der Rest der Welt so denken würde wie Sie, wäre es ein viel besserer Ort. …
@nunesdennis My technique is to imagine that I'm sitting in a movie theater next to someone who can't see the screen, and I have to whisper what I see to them so that they can be part of the experience. Of course, I don't pretend that my ALT descriptions are perfect or accurate, but they are an extension of my own expression, with my own flaws, mistakes, and way of describing things. And well, I'm a human, not a machine, so I guess that's part of the homemade charm. 😺
I admit that sometimes I struggle with alt tags. Understanding what there is to see in a picture is one thing, but providing info within the context of the overall post seems like it can come in handy
Curious to know if you tried Bluesky. I ask bc I thought Bluesky has a way to caption images.
I have an old art school friend who went gradually blind, and think of how I would describe my photos to her when I write my alt-text. I remember when she was sighted how much she enjoyed the act of looking, really catching this or that detail I hadn’t noticed, and I try to satisfy that, however I can, in text.
The Fediverse is also one of the few networks that actually allows you to edit the alt text directly. The only other ones I can think of are WordPress and Pinterest.
Thank you so much for posting this! I always include alt-text, but started doing so consistently mostly because self-appointed alt-text cops kept needling me anytime I left it out. This is the first time an alt-text user has actually said something nice about it (that I've seen in my feed, anyway).
Very kind of you to take a moment and say you appreciate it. I will continue to include it.
@SamanthaJaneSmith In so many different kinds of art - it depends! I would describe what strikes me. So, "Portrait of a person standing next to a window but entirely made up of straight brushstrokes no single one shorter than the length of the face." Or, "Bold black lines intersect across a white canvas with a single square of yellow towards the upper right corner."
@SamanthaJaneSmith Honestly, if you don't know how on something specific - reach out and ask. If I'm around I'm happy to give it a go, but there's also the hashtag ALT4Me which will summon a figurative army to help you out 😁
That's fantastic. Alt tags have been around since I started coding for the web 30 years ago and yet for some reason it's taken this generation of social media to integrate them fully. I'm so glad you can join us fully!
I always try to add Alt Text ... and I just discovered that on Pixelfed you can switch on a setting that forces you to add Alt Text. Great idea so I've turned it on on my Pixelfed account.
@HeliaXyana I often use alt text to better understand an image, so I think it would be helpful. What should the viewer take away from seeing the image? If you were describing it to someone over the phone, what would you draw their attention to? Mood and meaning are definitely part of that.
@HeliaXyana yes, and I can see it could be easy to go too far. Still, a reader can choose to stop reading at any point. I have never been troubled by too much alt text. There are whole essays on writing ‘good alt text’ but I think the important thing is to have alt text.
THANK YOU for this! I struggle to create alt text and it feels like it is a waste of time as nobody actually reads it. I will now keep your post and use it to motivate myself to create alt texts and enjoy knowing it matters rather than feel like it is pointless.
@Lydia Vvinters @Kris Herbert I can understand why you're thinking about it in this manner. Certainly, there is a case to be made both ways. If it's strictly meant for information, then short and to the point is good. But if it's about art, photography, etc. then it might make sense to describe it in more detail. But not all of us have seen in the past. So using metaphors, for example, sound pretty but may not truly help us understand what is in the image. It would be like saying "a woman with a face that looks like my mother's is sitting in a chair, holding a book." If you know what my mother looks like, it's fine. But if you don't, it will have no meaning for you. Likewise, I could say "the chair is beautiful" or I can say "the chair has ornate carvings of flowers on the back and has a velvet cushion". The latter tells me a lot more.
Is it enough to have the Altbot text as a comment to my post or would it be better for you and others if I transfer the Altbot description to the image alt text?
@Xanathon That would be truly wonderful! But honestly, even just using AltBot normally is fine, since the descriptions usually appear as a post right after the original.
Thanks for the information. So far I used ChatGPT manually for descriptions of my scifi and fantasy renders because Google's LLM was very lacking. I will keep that up, but for photographies or simpler images I will use Altbot. That was a very valuable hint, thanks again!
@Memere I am a seeing person, but I love alt text for the added info or insight into the personality of the poster and what's important to them. Sometimes they contain jokes.
As a sighted person who posts pics, I find I enjoy writing alt-text descriptions, so I don't mind it or think of it as a burden. I often find something new to appreciate in the picture as I think about how to describe it, and it feels nice to be doing something intentionally inclusive as well. I hope you don't think we're all begrudgingly doing something we hate, because some of us embrace it and are glad to do it.
@josh susser Oh, no. Definitely not, and that's really the point. It's wonderful to see people who care so deeply about inclusivity. Your own experience makes it even more meaningful, since both sides are benefiting. All of this is a lovely change from what I see elsewhere.
I'm so glad it's helpful! It's such an important skill for us to practice, too. It is so heartening to see not just the accessibility itself, but the solidarity—many people won't share a post that lacks alt text. That helps keep it front & center as an expectation rather than a bonus.
@Nat Oleander It's just a pity that if you post about an obscure enough niche topic like I do, it's the more difficult to make image posts perfectly accessible to everyone, the more obscure the topic is. For the more obscure the topic is, the more you have to describe, and the more you have to explain. (Caution: Never put explanations into alt-text! They must go where everyone can access them.)
I currently write the longest image descriptions in the whole Fediverse by a wide margin. But they may not actually be accessible enough, even though I describe all my original images twice.
The short descriptions in the alt-text don't always contain text transcripts, especially not all of them, and being only short descriptions, they aren't full, detailed visual descriptions either. The long descriptions for the same images in the post regularly end up with a five-digit character count. They may not be accessible because they're way too long. But sometimes they're the only place wher
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@Nat Oleander It's just a pity that if you post about an obscure enough niche topic like I do, it's the more difficult to make image posts perfectly accessible to everyone, the more obscure the topic is. For the more obscure the topic is, the more you have to describe, and the more you have to explain. (Caution: Never put explanations into alt-text! They must go where everyone can access them.)
I currently write the longest image descriptions in the whole Fediverse by a wide margin. But they may not actually be accessible enough, even though I describe all my original images twice.
The short descriptions in the alt-text don't always contain text transcripts, especially not all of them, and being only short descriptions, they aren't full, detailed visual descriptions either. The long descriptions for the same images in the post regularly end up with a five-digit character count. They may not be accessible because they're way too long. But sometimes they're the only place where all text transcripts can be found. And they are the only place where explanations can be found.
So the consequence should be that I quit posting my original images because they're impossible to make perfectly accessible to everyone, at least as long as there is no rock-solid definition for what's actually required in image descriptions in my obscure edge-case. But there isn't even any consensus on whether text that's illegible or that's so tiny that it's basically invisible must be transcribed if it can be sourced.
@Jupiter Rowland @Nat Oleander I'm a bit confused. If you write long descriptions, why wouldn't that help to make your images accessible? Alt text doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to give us an idea of what is in the image. It's certainly wonderful when more details are given, but even having an idea of what is going on is better than nothing.
@Georgiana Brummell I'd say not everyone would consider almost 1,000 characters of image description in a 1,500-character alt-text accessible. And even fewer people would consider a long image description in the post itself that's tens of thousands of characters long accessible if your screen reader spends an hour or several rambling it down.
My most extreme case is a post with only one image. That one image is described twice like all my halfway recent original images. The short description in the alt-text is a bit over 1,400 characters long which barely leaves any room for the note that there is also a long description in the post itself. That long description is over 60,000 characters long. I'm not kidding. It took me two full days from getting up to going to bed to research for it and write it.
Now, there are a few dozen bits and pieces of text all over the image. At the resolution at which I've posted the image, two of them are ever so barely le
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@Georgiana Brummell I'd say not everyone would consider almost 1,000 characters of image description in a 1,500-character alt-text accessible. And even fewer people would consider a long image description in the post itself that's tens of thousands of characters long accessible if your screen reader spends an hour or several rambling it down.
My most extreme case is a post with only one image. That one image is described twice like all my halfway recent original images. The short description in the alt-text is a bit over 1,400 characters long which barely leaves any room for the note that there is also a long description in the post itself. That long description is over 60,000 characters long. I'm not kidding. It took me two full days from getting up to going to bed to research for it and write it.
Now, there are a few dozen bits and pieces of text all over the image. At the resolution at which I've posted the image, two of them are ever so barely legible for sighted people. They're on a large logo on a building. Four more, two of them on that logo, too, two more on a sign on an easel, are illegible, but still visible. At least more on signs inside the building are visible, but they can't easily be identified as text. All the others are so tiny that they're invisible. It takes the long image description to even know where they are, for example, on the control panels of teleporters.
And yet, they are all within the borders of the image. And I can transcribe them. I can't read them in the image, but I can go to the place shown in the image and take closer looks.
Unfortunately, the rule or guideline that any and all text in an image must be transcribed verbatim does not take into consideration text that can't be read in the image, but that can be sourced and thus transcribed by whoever posts the image. No confirmation, no exception. And so I have to assume that I have to transcribe illegible text as well. And so I do transcribe them all.
But there's no way for me to put all these text transcripts into the alt-text, not if I want to keep Mastodon, Misskey and their forks from chopping it off at the 1,500-character mark. I'd also have to explain where all these pieces of text are, after all. And so the text transcripts are only available in the 60,000-character monster of a long image description.
It isn't really accessible to expect blind users to have their screen readers ramble and ramble and ramble for hours, just to get information that should actually belong into the alt-text which, in turn, shouldn't be longer than 200 characters.
On the other hand, it doesn't really seem accessible to me if I expect people to ask me to describe things in the image for them. It rather feels sloppy, if not out-right ableist to not describe everything that someone could possibly want to know right away.
The problem with my images is that they're renderings from very obscure 3-D virtual worlds. This means that nobody knows what anything in these images looks like unless they can see these images. This, in turn, means that I cannot expect anyone to know what something in my images looks like anyway. They don't.
At the same time, I can't expect everyone to not care about my images. In fact, I expect the very topic of 3-D virtual worlds that actually exist to make people curious. At this point, it doesn't matter what's important in my images within the context of the post. Sighted people will go explore the new and unknown world by taking closer looks at all the big and small details in the image.
But blind or visually-impaired people may be just as curious. They may want the same chance to explore this new world by experiencing what's in that one image. Denying them the same chances as sighted people is ableist. But giving them this chance requires an absolutely titanic image description.
Sure, I describe lots of details which a sighted person can't possibly recognise when looking at the image, especially not at the resolution of the image as I've posted it. But I simply can't keep telling blind or visually-impaired people that certain things in the image can't be recognised due to the image resolution. It feels lazy, like weaseling out. I mean, I can see all these details. Not in the image, but where the image was made, simply by walking closer to them or moving the camera closer to them.
If there are two dark objects inside a building that may or may not be plants, but that can't be identified as plants by looking at the image, why shouldn't I describe them as follows: "On the sides of the teleport panel, there are two identical açaí palms in square terracotta pots with wide rims. Like the other potted plants, these mostly dark green plants with long pointy leaves are kept at an indoor-compatible size, namely about three and a half metres or eleven and a half feet tall. Also, like the other potted plants, they are made of only four flat surfaces with partially transparent pictures of the plant on them, arranged in angles of 45 degrees to one another."
If there's room for improvement in my image descriptions, I improve my future image descriptions and declare my past image descriptions outdated. In fact, the 60,000-character-long description is outdated because it's bad style to describe dimension using measures. Instead, dimensions should be described by comparing them with something everyone is familiar with like body parts.
Right now, by the way, I'm upping my game at describing avatars, using rules and guidelines for describing people which I've discovered over the last few months. The last time I've described an avatar, I've done so in about 7,000 characters, but according to my new discoveries, I may have missed something.
However, I can't go into so much detail while still making my image descriptions short enough that a screen reader can read through them in under a minute.
@Jupiter Rowland @Nat Oleander Oh my goodness! Now I see what you mean. Even as a lover of nineteenth-century writing and proper English, that's long, especially for alt text!
What went into the actual alt-text of the image were 1,402 characters of visual description + 97 characters of notice that there's a long description in the post. The over 60,000 characters went into the post text body, right below the image itself.
I could have put the long description into the alt-text. But it would have been a nightmare for blind or visually-impaired people because screen readers can't navigate alt-text. Also, Mastodon, Glitch, Hometown, Misskey, Calckey, Firefish, Iceshrimp, CherryPick, Sharkey, Catodon and the other Mastodon and Misskey forks chop long alt-texts from outside off at the 1,500-character mark. Mastodon would simply have deleted almost 59,000 characters from my image description on their side, had I put it into the alt-text.
Thank you for the encourageing words. I am one of those people who always think that the descriptions are somehow not good enough and end up overthinking it...
Thank you for saying this. I had never written alt text before joining the fediverse, but I’ve come to appreciate the opportunity it gives me to think about why I posted the image and what’s worth knowing about it. I still do worry, but I feel more relaxed thanks to your post.
@modulux Also, thanks for the simple fact, that every Fediverse server has a publicly full-featured API, so it is possible to write a client which you want to use, and you do not have to use what some corporation gives you, on platforms of its choosing. Also, thank you again for the image descriptions, they're really appreciated.
Thanks for this post. I’m a person who always try to add descriptions, reallly wonder if I am doing it right, and have always wondered if anyone ever looked at them.
A while back, I built an exhibit I thought people would find interesting.
The first place I took it, I was thanked for having an exhibit which was accessible for the visually-impaired (I'm not certain about totally blind). I hadn't even thought of it that way!
You can read my write-up here. Unfortunately, the "caption" property on the images kind of conflicts with the "alt text" property, and I don't know which one you'll get.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds themselves paying more attention to their alt text than the actual post or image, both because it just seems right but also because it's kind of fun to put a little lighthearted humor. If a picture is a thousand words then the inverse must also be true.
I'm so glad to hear this! I put alt text on my photos and I try to get the important bits without overthinking it. I say what a thing is, list the colors it's in if that's important, explain the composition if that's important - all those old photo classes discussing images help with doing this, I've found.
If there’s no #Alt4Me tag on the undescribed image, it’s still worth being polite as no one wants bad feelings generated around the topic of descriptions. You might want to just reply with a description and #Alt4You tag, and if they’re abled they will hopefully get the message that descriptions are preferred.
I struggle with mine, that are not photos. The asemic art collage compositions I create can be very chaotic. Asemic writing & deconstructed text removes meaning, leaving the codes and conventions of writing and text. A combination of various colours, textures, irregular shapes and lines is an accurate over all description, but the devilishness is in the details. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. I've tried using the Alt-for-me tag, but nobody responded.
@davidrevoy @nunesdennis I suggest turning on audio description for a movie that has it available. You’ll usually find a variety of styles and not all are as elaborate as you might imagine. The most important thing is making an effort and understanding your purpose for sharing the image can guide your effort.
If you don't mind my asking - as a comic artist, I usually post full comic pages. There isn't enough alt text room to fully transcribe the page, so usually l will write something like "Page X of the comic Love and Hex. Full transcript: (link to an external page with both the comic image and a complete transcript)" followed by a broader description of what's going on without much detail.
Does that sort of thing suffice, or is there a preferred approach?
Are there things your screen reader has trouble with or that make listening more tedious?
I remember from years ago there was a sequence preference for some things. For example, with lists, I think the preference was word first, then tick box or radio button.
Yes. That still exists and is all part of WCAG, the guidelines used to create accessible websites, documents, etc. I am still learning it, so I can't answer from a professional point of view. But from a personal one, I find emoticons, emojis, etc. to be annoying, especially when they're used consecutively. "hands clapping" twenty times, for example, or during e-mails or other important communication. I don't mind if someone includes a few in his posts. Websites with clutter, such as adds in the middle of articles, hamburger menus, strange edit boxes, and pages that try to refresh when I read them are annoying, and of course, captchas without any audio option can be not only frustrating but actual barriers. I also convert all pdfs to txt. But as far as alt text, not much causes trouble. Sometimes, having many tags in the beginning or middle of a post, instead of at the end, can be confusing, since I have no way of just scrolling passed them.
I often get tasked to write alt-text descriptions for the images accompanying SEO blogs. I've read a couple of guides with recommendations for what's most "salient" in alt-text (some of them said, "Don't lead with 'image of' & I thought "'oh ... DUH'"), but is there anything particular that you find especially helpful? Like identifying overhead view or differentiating between foreground vs. background?? Is it context-dependent?
@Lironah @HeliaXyana I sometimes write in what I was feeling when taking the photograph, like one time I took a picture of clouds, and I said something like they looked great when I looked up in the sky and saw them, but the picture is crappy.... I find it fun to add such silly details in the alt text.
I often spend more time writing alt text than the text in the toot itself - not just to keep the toot itself as short as possible.
I always spend more time describing my images than writing the post that they go into.
For my meme posts, that's because I have to explain the picture and find the appropriate links to external explanations (KnowYourMeme etc.) to shorten my explanation block if possible.
For my original images, it's because I have to describe them twice. There's always an alt-text which, as of late, fills the 1,500-character limit imposed by Mastodon, Misskey etc. to the brim. But that alt-text is only a shortened and slightly adapted version of an extremely long long description which goes into the post text body and which also includes transcripts of any and all text in the image, readable or not, as well as all explanations which I deem necessary for outsiders to understand the image.
I often spend more time writing alt text than the text in the toot itself - not just to keep the toot itself as short as possible.
I always spend more time describing my images than writing the post that they go into.
For my meme posts, that's because I have to explain the picture and find the appropriate links to external explanations (KnowYourMeme etc.) to shorten my explanation block if possible.
For my original images, it's because I have to describe them twice. There's always an alt-text which, as of late, fills the 1,500-character limit imposed by Mastodon, Misskey etc. to the brim. But that alt-text is only a shortened and slightly adapted version of an extremely long long description which goes into the post text body and which also includes transcripts of any and all text in the image, readable or not, as well as all explanations which I deem necessary for outsiders to understand the image. Since the images are about an extremely obscure niche topic, this means I have to explain a lot.
A while ago, I spent two full days, morning to evening, researching for and describing and explaining one single image. The result was probably the longest image description ever posted in the Fediverse. And I actually had to limit myself, otherwise the description would have been even vastly longer and taken over a month to complete. Good thing I don't have any character limit to worry about. The only exception is that Mastodon may reject posts from outside with over 100,000 characters.
Don't hesitate to ask if you're unsure of something, but never think that we don't notice your effort.
I do have a few questions, specifically because my image posts have gone unnoticed by blind or visually-impaired users so far.
Judging and assuming from the information I've gathered so far, my original images require very extensive and detailed descriptions. A full description is too long for alt-text, so what I do is write a full description with all text transcripts and all necessary explanations, put it into the post text body and then condense a shorter, but still long alt-text from it. What's your stance on this method of describing the same image twice over?
Also, where would you personally prefer a long description? In the post itself? Or in an external document that's linked into the post? If you're on a phone app, remember that the external document will inevitably open your Web browser.
Do you prefer images described, based on what a sighted person can see in the image as it is posted? Or do you prefer a description that is
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Don't hesitate to ask if you're unsure of something, but never think that we don't notice your effort.
I do have a few questions, specifically because my image posts have gone unnoticed by blind or visually-impaired users so far.
Judging and assuming from the information I've gathered so far, my original images require very extensive and detailed descriptions. A full description is too long for alt-text, so what I do is write a full description with all text transcripts and all necessary explanations, put it into the post text body and then condense a shorter, but still long alt-text from it. What's your stance on this method of describing the same image twice over?
Also, where would you personally prefer a long description? In the post itself? Or in an external document that's linked into the post? If you're on a phone app, remember that the external document will inevitably open your Web browser.
Do you prefer images described, based on what a sighted person can see in the image as it is posted? Or do you prefer a description that is not limited by the restriction of the image itself, for example, assuming an infinite image resolution and an infinite zoom factor that would let sighted people theoretically see even tiniest details?
If I mention something in my image description of which you don't know what it looks like, do you need a detailed visual description?
Concerning text transcripts: Let's assume a bit of text in an image is too small to be legible for sighted people, but I can read it at the original source, so I can transcribe it nonetheless. Shall I transcribe it? What about if said text is too small to be recognisable as text or so tiny that's it's practically invisible? I mean, after all, the concept of image resolution should not matter to totally blind people, so writing that a piece of text can't be read because the resolution of the image is too low ought to sound like a lame excuse for skimping a transcript.
If there's a building in one of my images, I can safely assume that you don't know what that one specific building looks like, so I guess I can also assume that you need it described. If I could, I would do so using architectural terms and then explaining all these architectural terms right after using them. Would you say that's the correct way? Because that's why I avoid having realistic buildings in my images.
If there's an image in my image, do you need it described? At a level that I can source right where the image is without moving away too far, or at a level that I can only source by moving farther away to the place shown in the image? What about an image in an image in my image? (I'm serious. I've actually described images within images within my image, but I've stopped when this was about to go out of hand due to there being too many to describe.)
I'm currently working on a series of posts with images showing a virtual-world avatar in various but similar outfits; in fact, I have been since last year. I may have questions later regarding at what level of detail I have to describe that avatar.
@Xanathon That would be truly wonderful! But honestly, even just using AltBot normally is fine, since the descriptions usually appear as a post right after the original.
You know what? This is a nice post. I never thought much about this. #Fedilab gives me a big yellow warning when there's no #alttext so I just fill it in. But as someone who's only worry is overstimulation it rarely really crosses my mind. This is a good reminder that it dóés matter, and reading it makes me happy I fill it in.
BlueSky has an option in the settings that forces you to add alt-text before posting an image or video. If people still aren't adding alt text, that is definitely a choice they are making, and it's not a good choice IMHO.
I appreciate you saying this. Is there a list of alttext generators that most people here use? I am trying to use them as much as possible. I will definitely look up altbot.
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@davidrevoy @nunesdennis also, at minimum, consider that the default is something like "image." So even the difference between "photo" and "screenshot" and "meme" at least provides handles on what they're missing.
Obviously enough detail to be included in the conversation is better & elaboration on what's notable or aesthetic is best. Someone could always ask a question if they were curious, but not if they have insufficient info.
I usually elaborate on why it's nice: see attached
This is wonderful! Please may I ask - I was just adding some alt text to an image and wondered if there's a convention when the text on the post adequately describes the image or I struggle to describe it again without repetition, is alt text still needed/is it annoying listening to it again, or do you always prefer alt text? Thanks!
@James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺 No. if you describe it, then the alt text really shouldn't be needed. The whole purpose of the alt text is to describe the image, so if that's what you're doing, you don't need to do it twice. However, there may be an exception. Let's say that you have a picture, and "grandma's delicious cake" is written on the picture. Since it's inside the image, a screen reader most likely wouldn't be able to read that without some other extraction/ocr tool. So in that case, you could write the text. Whether you choose to add details "the cake is in a pan, sitting on a large table", is up to you.
@James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺 I actually just saw something very interesting, directly related to our conversation! Someone posted an image with two descriptions. It seemed that he wrote one and then something like Altbot wrote the other. It was fascinating, because while they were describing the same thing, the second was more detailed. Yet either one could have worked and provided the same information. That said, here, the focus was on the image. It wasn't just there in the background with text, so while the double description wasn't technically necessary, it worked.
I'm curious about your browsing setup, do you mind if I ask about it? (I've gone back and added alt text to any images I've posted to try and be worthy)
@Gary Brazzell The only other social platforms I've used are Facebook and Dreamwidth. On Facebook, I've never seen alt tags at all. Dreamwidth is a journalling site, so it's really a different thing entirely. I do love the alt text here, though. I was very surprised when I first saw it, and even more so at how many people use them and even refuse to boost images without them! So it was an extremely wonderful thing to realise. As for accessibility, the Basic Mobile site (not app) of Facebook used to be very accessible. Their shutting it down is what made me come to Friendica. I mostly use it via a client called TweeseCake. I am finding various inaccessible features, or at least ones that cause a lot of a nnoyance, on the main site and intend to write to the Friendica Support group about it. Mastodon seems to be accessible from my glancing at it while reading people's profiles.
This is uplifting. May there be a riddle to honor people with visual impairments who found themselves welcome within the Federation. “Whom does not see, yet has thousands of eyes writing for them?”
@zy @shred @dandylover1 When I get a message in German, the alt text is also in German (for example). It makes it easy to copy and paste into an internet translator.
I have found it helpful when the words are embedded in the picture too. Just go to the alt text and cut and paste.
I'm so happy that it helps people with vision problems.
(I had no idea German would be so important in 2025, but here we are.)
I previously used alt tests only on my Mastodon posts (I post images here only very occasionally), but this kind of comments really convinced me that I should just bite the bullet and write alt texts for Pixelfed images from now on, too. Because that's what I *ought* to be doing.
@wilbr @davidrevoy @nunesdennis I am not visually impaired, but I love alt text and almost always read it. It clues me in on things I would otherwise miss. This photo you have posted here is a perfect example, because I didn't even notice the duck until your alt text drew my attention to it!
@Spinner @Georgiana Brummell When I want to post an original image, that "one extra minute" is more like several hours or even multiple entire days that it takes to research for and write the descriptions for one image. No, I'm not joking.
Even when I post a meme, I can't describe the visuals in the image itself in a few minutes. And then the explanations (which go into the post itself rather than into the alt-text) come on top.
Still, I always go all the way whenever I post an image. I'd rather not post an image than underdescribe and/or underexplain it. I refuse to do any less than that because I always have to expect someone somewhere out there needing it. That's why I've only posted one measly image in the last 12 months, and that was a meme.
I like following a caption bot. It reminds me every time I forget to include alt text. Sorry I don't recall what it's called, maybe something like CaptionPlease?
@Giselle @Jennifer Moore 😷 @Georgiana Brummell This is actually a mistake that many Fediverse user keep making because they don't know better, and because the majority of Mastodon users only have 500 characters available.
That's because not everyone can access alt-text. I'm being absolutely serious here. In order to access alt-text, you need either a screen reader (which sighted people don't have) or at least one sufficiently working hand.
If you want to explain your image, please do so in the post text itself and not in the alt-text.
@jupiter_rowland I wish to argue that each Fediverse user gets to make their own decision of what they want to include in alt text. On the understanding that not everyone may be able to see alt text, and that by not extending what they want to say to everyone, the poster loses out. Strict rules of what we must, or must never do, don't sit right with me.
@Giselle I've been told that by a Mastodon user who really values accessibility. However, she told me that she cannot access alt-texts because both of her hands don't work well enough for her to access alt-text.
It was her who told me to never explain things in alt-text because she and people like her can't read these explanations, because they can't open the alt-text with these explanations inside.
Explaining stuff in alt-text and not in the post throws people like her in front of a bus, just like not describing images at all throws blind and visually-impaired people in front of a bus.
I have explained my image posts in the post text body ever since, regardless of Mastodon users whining that I exceed 500 characters.
Explanations go into the post/toot where everyone can access them.
I mean, sure, you're free to put them only in the alt-text because your character limit is so meagre. You're just as free to write super-sho
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@Giselle I've been told that by a Mastodon user who really values accessibility. However, she told me that she cannot access alt-texts because both of her hands don't work well enough for her to access alt-text.
It was her who told me to never explain things in alt-text because she and people like her can't read these explanations, because they can't open the alt-text with these explanations inside.
Explaining stuff in alt-text and not in the post throws people like her in front of a bus, just like not describing images at all throws blind and visually-impaired people in front of a bus.
I have explained my image posts in the post text body ever since, regardless of Mastodon users whining that I exceed 500 characters.
Explanations go into the post/toot where everyone can access them.
I mean, sure, you're free to put them only in the alt-text because your character limit is so meagre. You're just as free to write super-short alt-texts that don't really describe anything. You're just as free to not describe your images at all.
But don't complain if someone criticises you for either.
Caring and trying are really all that are required, and sadly that's still beyond a lot of people, so when you do, even if you have room for improvement, we really do take notice. It really is the best feeling!
hello. Thank you for your post. Something I wanted to know is do you need the description of color ? Does that bring you information or is it useless ? (Because the color is very important to me, I do describ them in the altext but if you don’t matter I would skip them). Thank you for your answer (I hope i write well I am not very good in english)
If you are using Signal, and you are doing something the government considers illegal, the way they are going to read your messages about it is they will arrest the person you sent the messages *to*, and make your counterparty show them the logs. We know this because this technique came up again and again in, for example, the Jan. 6 court filings.
There may, hypothetically, be other Signal exploits available to a government, but this is the one they will use, because it works.
There are multiple levels of state-level actors. The things [US, China, Israel] can do, are not the things [a nation state not on that list] can do, are not the things a municipal police department can do, are not the things a lone cop who stops you on the street but does not have a warrant can do.
Moreover, part of the purpose of this post in the first place was to communicate "things that protect you from an employer or malicious third party may stop protecting you the further up the nation-state power scale you move".
@mcc I may have used that term without properly understanding its meaning. My thinking was that if arrest is a possibility, it may make sense to use something like Graphene. I imagined that by using an OS without potential Google / Apple backdoors, that has strong device encryption, police may not be able to gain access to the device and, at least in the US, fifth amendment protections would prevent them from compelling you to provide a password. But I am just postulating; I absolutely do not know what I am talking about on this stuff.
But yea, I hear you on the levels. I'm sure with adequate budget anyone can get whatever they like from you.
It is my expectation¹ that an up-to-date Apple device with device encryption and with reasonable settings (IE, Face ID off) would be resistant to being broken into by conventional law enforcement. If "intelligence" services can break into such phones it is probably by methods they don't want to expose to the probing eye of a court.
¹ I do not know if this is still true in the Apple Intelligence era.
However also most people are not committing crimes, and there is a weak correlation by which people who are not committing crimes are less likely to be exposed to surveillance techniques that would require some sort of subpeona. The above statement I have made might become less and less time as Donald Trump remains President and more things become crimes.
@mcc uncertain times for sure. I wish more people would have taken all of this privacy & security stuff more seriously up to this point, as it certainly does seem that any day now people might find themselves getting in trouble for some previously innocuous thing that got hoovered into a three-letter agency's data center years ago.
Aaron war ein toller Mensch, und er hätte viel für die Menscheit tuen können. Ich sehe es als globale Sünde, das man ihn in den Selbstmord getrieben hatt. ❤️ 🙏
This entry was edited (Sunday, February 9, 2025, 3:45 PM)
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
Thanks! I'd never seen that. This particular link has some audio censorship shenanigans due to the mention of "suicide" toward the end, but I was able to find another YT link that doesn't edit it out. youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3Uk…
This is the FULL MOVIE! - The Internet's Own Boy depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Sw...
The Internet's Own Boy depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. It features interviews...
Best is that Aaron Swartz merely downloaded, and in a way that should be entirely legal. Meanwhile Meta/Facebook definitely illegally downloaded it all *and* then made a derivative product out of it.
Happy to see truth getting out. I did warn people back, then that it was piracy to download, but nobody listen to me. Sometimes greed overtakes our mental capacity to be rational. Case in point #ZuckTheSchmuck #Muskrat #Bezos #LarryPage #SergeyBrin
There exists a group photo of Aaron Swarz and Zuckerberg at MIT. Same story, different intents, different outcomes. Sadly not the good intention had the better outcome. Edit: It was Sam Altman. But the point still remains. mamutovo.cz/@Razemix/113978218…
That is the world we live in. The state is the henchman of big capital and will utterly destroy any ordinary citizen who is deemed a threat to the income of big capital. A very educational film on that matter.
Among other things, he co-authored RSS at 14, cocreated Open Library and Reddit, was influential in Creative Commons, and founded Demand Progress. All of this in his too-short twenty-six years on this planet.
Aaron Hillel Swartz, may his memory be for a blessing.
I’m not sure why you would say it’s illegal. Anna’s makes everything open for downloading and opposes copyright. The authors of those works could object but they would also very much object to Anna’s having “illegal “ copies and making them available outside of any protection.
Oh… THAT’S what Meta did (I had read random comments online, but wasn’t sure what they did and then got distracted by the avalanche of news coming at me.)
Ugh… that’s freaking HORRIBLE!
This entry was edited (Sunday, February 9, 2025, 8:46 PM)
And isn't the result kinda...pathetic? You steal one of the largest libraries, an inconceivable amount of human knowledge, brilliant ideas, beautiful art and make... this? A digital parrot that is often wrong, but when it's right, it's kinda good?
Makes you wonder about the utility of IP a little... if corporations disregard others' IP (ie. Everything on the Internet) then perhaps we do away with IP altogether. Or greatly reduce copyright protections in favor of copyleft perhaps.
yup that is a tragic story. and Aaron helped inventing great things like Rss feeds, and did not published the downloaded articles, and was not helped by his university to counter the harassment from elsevier. v_v
Asymmetric enforcement of property rights is absolutely not a mistake. It's core to how capitalist competition functions. zirk.us/@MidniteMikeWrites/113…
Attached: 1 image
@dgfitch@kolektiva.social @KarlSchroeder@mastodon.social
A lot of people view the cruelty of capitalism as just a straight forward consequence of market incentives: profit maximization, arbitrage of information asymmetry, etc.
The purpose entirely different. Aaron wanted the knowledge to be free to be used for furthering human intellectual advancement and enrichment. AI is going to replace and never credit the ownership of anything. No citing of sources, no scholarly notations, just amalgam of secretive manufactured output inevitable owned by someone.
I've got a few hundred gigabytes of pirated PDFs and EPUBs lying around, more than half of that scientific publications, mostly due to that fact that those are full of images. The sheer number of files in the fictional literature directories is larger by several orders of magnitude, but since pure text compresses down to next to nothing, the entire Dune series, J R R Tolkien's collected works, even the entire Discworld series, all take up no more than a few megabytes each, while a single scientific book is often more than 100MB due to all those images. PDFs about biology are often larger than those about Physics because there are more high resolution photographs and much fewer simple vector graphics. So the sheer data volume doesn't tell us much about how many pieces of text we're dealing with, how many papers, magazines, books. It could be huge libraries of fiction, history, politics, or philosophy, or it could be just a few books on botany or zoology with a lot of HR photographs.
@pluto In a way. The post honours Aaron Swartz memory I get it. Part of his work as an activist was to make what he considered to be Digital commons to be publicly available. He was, I think, against the system of enclosure and privatization of the commons that characterizes capitalism . I was agreeing with a previous comment, expanding it to the most cruel forms of capitalism. Maybe a bit far from the original post, but in a continuum in my estimation.
How many of the people agreeing to that it's a outrage are still using Meta? How many are still using Meta and simply ignored all the previous violations the company performed?
Bigots.
Btw, the thread's discussion is maily about Aaron, which is not the main topic. See how fast people get distracted.
It's about Meta's THEFT and copyright violation, not about Aaron (RIP)!
meta being a leecher on Anna's Archive is meta not only being above the law, but also the worst kind of pirate, using a ton of bandwidth, causing cost, but for no good reason. a bad actor, in every senses that word can have, for everyone except itself
I want my blog to show tags, but I know my default would just be keyword stuffing the tags. So I was wodne if folks had a standard set of tags that they consistently use on their blogs
Soooo when we set this in comparison and scale it up according to the theft of intellectual property what Meta did for training it's Algorithms, how many Billions would that be? 🙄😁 @oliver
aaronsw was an acquaintance in real, and we had exchanged emails and were FB friends.
He was principled, charming, talented, and much loved.
But he was also entitled and arrogant.
MIT blocked his access to JSTOR passively a number of times and he kept working around ip blocks, etc.
MIT had very good surveillance abilities, when we had a compromised guest laptop at One Laptop per Child IS&T called me in like 5 minutes and told me you have five minutes to get this off the net.
There should be free exchange of information. People should get social credit if they want it bit everyone should freely be able to use any and all ideas. To ensure freedom, combat censorship/propoganda, have true education, to enable communities to defend themselves, and to encourage organic development of concepts/academic growth. When companies own ideas, only privileged get to think.
This entry was edited (Thursday, January 29, 2026, 8:47 PM)
Attorneys for meta called me last year asking if I would be an expert witness and testify that the models that 3D artists make are worthless (they were caught stealing datasets from an eastern European design company and were/are being sured for billions). I said no. Meta is one of the most corrosive, corrupt, morally bankrupt and society-damaging companies that has ever existed.
@coldclimate I told them I would only testify that the models represent hours of specialized craftsmanship in addition to the years it takes to learn how to do it. They said they decided to use another witness. I'm not smart enough to have actually thought a scheme where I would have thrown them under the bus on the witness stand. Good idea though. I doubt I could have done it. I'm a terrible liar.
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Hi, I've moved server so I thought I'd introduce this again:
Mutant Standard is an emoji set that aims to combine familiar, standardised symbols with completely new ones, aimed at letting certain groups of people (queer people and furries in particular) communicate themselves more authentically.
🚀
![Dec [{()}]](photo/contact/80/218519?ts=1773434719)
:: Asta ::
in reply to Adrianna Tan • • •that ICE and the administration are now doing this to white Europeans is certainly an escalation, but the fundamental problem is, and always has been, that it does this to anyone.
And so long as it retains the ability to do this to anyone, no one is safe. I really, really hope that is made abundantly clear to everyone, because as long as ICE, the infrastructure behind it, the the ideology that led to its creation and current status exist, it will be bad. People will be harmed.
I desperately hope people don’t just take a few token white people being released (if that happens) and move on…
Nathan
in reply to Adrianna Tan • •like this
Adrianna Tan, simi_kc and Phil Dennis-Jordan like this.
Lucky ✨
in reply to Adrianna Tan • • •Nathan likes this.
Mike McCaffrey
Unknown parent • • •She is not asking for white guilt. She is asking for white action, rather than white indifference.
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
Unknown parent • • •{ id: d2718, ok: 🇵🇸🌈🏳️⚧️🇺🇦 }
in reply to Adrianna Tan • • •