I frequently get faced with a dilemma when someone posts content that is not accessible yet I find interesting and worthy of sharing.

Do I share?

When I make content I strive for it to be accessible but a lot of stuff on social media is not created by me but I may think people would like to know about it.

Do I never share?

That would stop me from sharing a lot of interesting stuff on principle. But what little content I did would be fully accessible.  Maybe if you consider social media to only contain ephemera then this should be your course of action.

Do I fix other people’s content?

In this case I have fixed someone else’s content.

However it’s taken me much more time than the collective effort of all the people who created the original content and responded to it so is not realistic on every occasion:

What about when the medium is innately inaccessible?

Twitter is a short form medium. I wish that it provided the opportunity to create alt text inbuilt. I wish that the default mobile clients supported these features – they don’t yet. As a consequence sometimes I share stuff that is not accessible.

The Text In The Offending Image:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.

You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before.

Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” — Neil Gaiman

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