Imagine applying that reasoning to the public mistakes businesses or governments have made?
If we’re going to be serious about morality, then breaking accessibility[1] when simpler alternatives do not is more immoral than showing public information[2].
Moreover, with freedom & no reasonable expectation of privacy in public, disclosing non-secret information is just.
If people are equal, then
How does anyone get to decide better than the public matters of public business?
How does a particular person get to decide for everyone what is a mistake?
Couldn’t they be wrong?
Gatekeeping is fraught with its own problems like the gatekeeper putting their judgement on public matters ahead of the public’s.
It’s non-egalitarian & defies people’s right to know public affairs, so it’s morally dubious.
Images of text break much that text or a link to (archived) source do not.
Issues when image lacks text alternative such as link
usability
we can’t quote the text without pointless bullshit like retyping it or OCR
text search is unavailable
the system can’t
reflow text to varied screen sizes
vary presentation (size, contrast)
vary modality (audio, braille)
accessibility
some users can’t read this due to misleading alt text
users can’t adapt the text for dyslexia or vision impairments
systems can’t read the text to them or send it to braille devices
searchability: the “text” isn’t indexable by search engine in a meaningful way
fault tolerance: no text fallback if image breaks.
Contrary to age & humble appearance, text is an advanced technology that provides all these capabilities absent from images.
Imagine applying that reasoning to the public mistakes businesses or governments have made?
If we’re going to be serious about morality, then breaking accessibility[1] when simpler alternatives do not is more immoral than showing public information[2].
Moreover, with freedom & no reasonable expectation of privacy in public, disclosing non-secret information is just. If people are equal, then
Gatekeeping is fraught with its own problems like the gatekeeper putting their judgement on public matters ahead of the public’s. It’s non-egalitarian & defies people’s right to know public affairs, so it’s morally dubious.
Images of text break much that text or a link to (archived) source do not.
Issues when image lacks text alternative such as link
Contrary to age & humble appearance, text is an advanced technology that provides all these capabilities absent from images.
which isn’t immoral ↩︎