The Role of Online Communities in Ableist Social Media Platforms [He 2019]

In her Slate article, April Glaser describes the unfair obstacles blind Facebook users face when utilizing social media platforms that their able-bodied counterparts don’t encounter. While the majority of her article focuses on technological obstacles like VoiceOver dysfunctions and other bugs, her penultimate paragraph mentions online communities that have formed as a result of shared feelings of frustration. Glaser names one group, “Community Access,” which “has more than 1,300 members,” blind and sighted, and posts content such as governmental flyers concerning food and safety. These flyers are typed up by sighted users so that blind users can use VoiceOver to “read” what they say. Without discrediting the challenges Glaser highlights, I argue that a silver lining in the dark cloud of ableist online platforms are the communities that develop from it.

Similar to “Community Access”, the “Blind and visually impaired support group” on Facebook also aims to achieve greater accessibility and inclusivity. The description of the group states that it is a “group where the visually impaired or totally blind people alike [can] get together and support each other or share helpful tips or products to help in everyday tasks.” It’s similar to “Community Access” because it allows both blind/visually impaired users and sighted users to join. Just today, the page has had 45 new posts, and includes 8,251 members. The page also includes 6 administrative rules, one of them being “Photograph Descriptions,” requesting that “when sharing a photograph, please include a written description of the photograph, so that all members may participate and enjoy the group equally.” A little differently, the Facebook page @BlindNewWorld hopes to create inclusivity for the visually impaired community by posting about the accomplishments of blind/visually impaired individuals. Like their biographical note states, they are a “first-of-its-kind campaign to demystify blindness and break down barriers to inclusion.”

In this manner, it’s possible to draw a connection between these online communities and fandoms. While the two have obvious differences (it seems inappropriate to call blind Facebook group members “fans” of blindness), they are similar because these virtual communities have fostered real feelings of belonging and, well, community. Like Patryk Galuszka describes in his article “New Economy of Fandom,” geographical distance separates members of these communities, but “the internet helps build fan communities” and other online communities alike (Galuszka, 29). Much like how fandoms bond over a shared affection for a certain artist or celebrity, online blind communities have bonded over their shared frustration of ableist online platforms and helping each other navigate these systems. 

As Glaser argues, online platforms like Facebook have much work to do in order to make their services more accessible to blind and visually impaired users (not to mention the many other non-ableist users out there). But these online communities - and the collaboration they have allowed between the visually impaired and the sighted - have created a sense of belonging that blind users deserve to feel online.

"The blind and visually impaired support group" on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/259008737631118/

@BlindNewWorld on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlindNewWorld/

Galuszka, Patryk. “New Economy of Fandom.” Popular Music and Society 38, no. 1 (2014): 

25–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2014.974325.

Glaser, April. “When Things Go Wrong for Blind Users on Facebook, They Go Really Wrong.” 

Slate Magazine. The Slate Group LLC, November 20, 2019. 

https://slate.com/technology/2019/11/facebook-blind-users-no-accessibility.html.