Alt text:

Junlper:

donald trump is starting a war in venezuela for oil because he is a pedophile war criminal who wants to kill everyone on the planet

A/@LBJhater9000:

This is what I voted for

Dino/@Homiedino:

A pedophile war criminal?

A/@LBJhater9000:

Yes

  • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    71·
    18 days ago

    Every voice matters: about time the pedophile war criminal voting bloc got represented.

    Post needs accessibility.

    Images of text break much that text alternatives do not. Losses due to image of text lacking 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
      • lacks semantic structure (tags for titles, heading levels, sections, paragraphs, lists, emphasis, code, links, accessibility features, etc)
      • some users can’t read the image due to lack of alt text (markdown image description)
      • 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
    • web connectivity
      • we have to do failure-prone bullshit to find the original source
      • we can’t explore wider context of the original message
    • authenticity: we don’t know the image hasn’t been tampered
    • searchability: the “text” isn’t indexable by search engine in a meaningful way
    • fault tolerance: no text fallback if
      • image breaks
      • image host is geoblocked due to insane regulations.

    Contrary to age & humble appearance, text is an advanced technology that provides all these capabilities absent from images.