 A friend just pointed out: "ADHD creates impulse control issues and, consequently, advertising takes advantage of a disability. Ergo, ad blockers are assistive devices and interfering with their operation for commercial gain constitutes a willful violation of the ADA." Let’s do this. 87 comments
@c0debabe Same for me. I about spat out my teeth when they pointed this out to me. Oh! Yes! In all seriousness, absolutely, it is!   @glyph It took me decades to remember to talk to a doctor about all this when I was in a position to talk to one.   @erinaceus @tek Germany has no right to sue for accessibility violations at all, IIRC. @erinaceus @tek And only in few areas laws about mandatory accessibility at all. And even those often weak. For example public transportation ought to be accessible by the beginning of 2022. But... Big loopholes. @project1enigma @erinaceus @tek yeah, unfortunately afaik no part of western Europe has had a major disability rights movement. The ADA only became law because around 1990 a bunch of disabled folks put down their assistive devices/got out of their wheelchairs & CRAWLED up the steps of the US capitol, as well as holding mass public transit usages to force cities to recognize that they lack the infrastructure to address disabilities. It didn't appear bc ableds randomly had a flash of insight lol.  I find I can't function with an ad in my face, I will either find a way to get rid of it or I will close the web site. @deilann @tek 1000 percent sure temu (and not just singling a Chinese business out, amazon etc does it too with its cheap junk side, every store does it to a degree anymore) does this with hoarders/packrat types who don't have the official HD diagnosis but who behave as if they do Unfortunately have lived experience living with one @deilann @tek addiction/compulsion exploitation should be illegal as a business practice. I wouldn't say as far as establishing alcohol Prohibition or a total nicotine ban or a gambling ban or a shopping app ban etc - even though those products are all inherently problematic for addiction but I DEFINITELY would say as far as *none* of those things should be advertised or promoted in ways that worsen people's addictive/compulsive engagement, if that makes sense @deilann @tek hell yeah, while we're at it let's show some love and boost Dave's reviews about business's exclusionary designs that don't allow disabled people in
https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/109489146235841492880/reviews/  @elricofmelnibone Yep, but fortunately there are laws with teeth in some jurisdictions.  @tek yes!! The only reason to get “””smart glasses””” if they ever show up would be to run adblock irl. I’d be up for that.  @maxwainwright @tek I've heard of a low tech solution here... Many ads on the street today (depending on the city) are displayed on monitors, & we can manufacture glasses with filters which blacks out TV screens from your vision!  @tek I have been thinking this exact thing lately. Glad to see I'm not the only one. @cargot_robbie I grew up with those and never appreciated how horrid they are until I moved to somewhere without them. Now they make me want to come back with a chainsaw and axe.  @cargot_robbie @tek IIRC Maine and Vermont have already banned billboards, more places should.  @tek Now that we’re talking about this: I’m sure online ads deployed in certain ways (at minimum) make websites less accessible for people with severe dyslexia, motor issues, vision problems, and certain cognitive impairments. Although this gets tricky because only public sector websites are covered by Section 508 of the ADA which mandates they be accessible for people with many types of disabilities. Section 508 does not cover private sector/corporate websites. @MisuseCase I've heard people strongly insist that public-facing websites count under the ADA. I don't have a legal background to have an opinion on this, though. @tek @MisuseCase public-facing websites definitely count; Domino's got sued over lack of screen reader accessibility under the ADA in 2019 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/dominos-supreme-court.html @MisuseCase @tek Can confirm this as a screen-reader user. Many accessibility violations, to name but a few:  @loganer “That costs more than $0.00 in time and effort and affects them, not me, so why should I care?” It would be easy, but many of the people deciding such things are sociopaths.  Not just that. :D Since Google starting gathering data from the machines that people were using to display the adverts. This includes the OS versioning, and, update status. Bad actors then use the market segmentation to find vulnerable machines, so only unpatched machines would have the malicious adverts displayed. The adverts do a re-direct to another website that performs an automatic "drive-by" installation of malware. @tek Not just assistive devices for ADHD either. Genuinely on of the reasons I finally got one was because having a lot of random moving shit on my screen is overstimulating and triggers my ME/CFS symptoms. I literally can't visit sites with a bunch of random shitty ads anymore.  I wonder if it would be against UK and EU domestic equality/accessibility laws too? @vfrmedia@social.tchncs.de @jordan_kendrick I hadn't either. It seemed super obvious the moment he said it. Oh, sure, of course!  @tek Arguing adblockers are an assistive device may be a hard sell; they could just argue that adblockers themselves aren’t illegal, so a site that refuses to load content because it sees you have an adblocker is akin to a private business turning you away at the door because you wear sneakers. You may have better luck with arguing that flashing/moving, bright images are negatively affecting the quality of life/endangering people with disabilities for ads in public areas. @WhiteCatTamer One of those doesn’t preclude the other. And the counter might be that it’s closer to a business turning you away at the door because you have crutches. @tek Not really, since: You can argue that this is aimed at changing 1, but you’d be hard pressed to argue that most people who use ad blockers have a diagnosed AD(H)D disability. Their ubiquity would point away from that. @Roundcat Same for me! It never occurred to me to think of it that way explicitly though. The moment I heard the idea, yes!, absolutely!  Same here. I find ads intolerable, will turn away at first sight, repeated exposure (which is part of the concept!) is like scratching the skin over and over in the same spot. My city is chock full of them. Horrid screens that play bright images, even with motion. At nearly every bus stop. At every big intersection. Many subway stations are nearly unusable. 1/2 I cannot go out anymore in #Hamburg without a basecap, essentially the only reliable irl ad bocker, just because some assholes decided to take over our public space with their junk, arguing that making us see these images is more important than anything else including our mental health, while the city government aids and abets them in all possible ways (!). I'm in the process of seeking a diagnosis, once I get it I will certainly try to sue them. 2/2  @tek Sadly at a skim of the ADA, I think this doesn't fly :( The ADA's website/app stuff seems tightly scoped to governments and private entities where the website is a replacement or enhancement to a service that's provided in a physical place open to the public (e.g. online reservation for a restaurant). I don't think the main sources of ads on the web fall under that scope :( @tek Although if you rescope to physical advertising, maybe places like airports would be in scope... Though I suspect it still wouldn't work out, in no small part because ads are massive business and would be heavily incentivized to demonstrate that ads are fine, actually :(  @tek A related thought I’ve had over the years since my vision and other health issues started is that DRM and format shifting restrictions on ebooks are a violation of the ADA because it’s very hard to qualify for the limited carve-outs to access materials in other ways (e.g. bookshare) and I should be able to read my book on whatever device works for me (e.g. the Canute 360 — https://bristolbraille.org/about-canute/ — which is never going to get a Kindle integration).  @tek this is a very good point. I have a blind friend who uses ad blockers & this would also be a violation of the ADA for blind accessibility. @tek I'm the opposite. I have "poster blindness" for ads, especially if they appear in the same position all the time. I do get annoyed at popups, but I quickly dispense with them and charge ahead with whatever I'm maniacally researching. As for TV/streaming, I look as though I'm watching the ads, but I'm actually looking "through" them, daydreaming. Most of the time, I can't tell you what I've just seen, or what is being advertised. I'm a nightmare for marketers. :D  @lulu_powerful @tek I'm the same. Undiagnosed but highly probable ADHD. Often poor impulse control but advertising isn't much of an issue in that regard because I literally can't even force myself to pay enough attention to it to figure out what's being advertised. @tek also accretive administrative complexity in negotiating govt and corporate transactions impinge practically on theoretical rights, grants, services and market freedoms  @tek A take on this is Vermont does not allow billboards on the highways. After being in Vermont and then driving to another state, the intrusiveness of ads becomes visceral. I think of this even in the grocery store and they play basically ads on the in-store radio. Once you see and hear the notion of intrusion into your mind you can't forget it. I mean it's not ads but I also can't abide loud car exhaust for the same basic reasons. It's an "emotional" ad based on libertarian ideals.  YES! this is a huge issue for me. ADHD diagnosis escalated my exhausted annoyance at flashing ads and wiggling UI elements, up to an indignant outrage at the arrogant robbery of my precious limited attention. it very literally impairs my ability to function with digital interfaces — and i'm an information technologist! i can't imagine surviving these days without uBlock Origin's element zapper rules. @tek It's too bad you can't try a corporation and give it the death sentence, because there's a good case to be made for doing that to advertising companies, including Google and Facebook. |
Gregory's Server
@tek oh absolutely. I have issues with cognitive load and ad blockers are a huge aid for clarifying what on the page I need to be looking at.