Notices by Adrian Roselli (aardrian@toot.cafe)

Watching someone twist themselves into knots to try to spin LLM gibberish as anything other than nonsense is a sad testament to the lack of critical analysis in tech press nowadays.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/04/google-searchs-made-up-ai-explanations-for-sayings-no-one-ever-said-explained/

• US Citizen,
• arrested in Tucson,
• held for 10 days,
• seemingly deprived a phone call,
• family not told.

https://news.azpm.org/p/news-articles/2025/4/18/224512-us-citizen-in-arizona-detained-by-immigration-officials-for-10-days/

ICE seems willing to lie after grabbing Americans off the street almost like it has a quota but no consequences.

• US Citizen,
• held in jail at ICE request,
• despite birth certificate proof,
• and traffic misdemeanor dropped,
• under state law that is blocked.

We’ve known Trump / ICE will do this to US citizens. Could be any of us.

• https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/04/17/georgia-born-man-held-for-ice-under-floridas-new-anti-immigration-law/
• https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-born-citizen-detained-ice-immigration-florida-rcna201800

Thinking of adding to my blog posts where the social share buttons usually go:

“Don’t share: Twitter, Facebook. Because fuck them and giving them my content for free.”

@mattmay I wish I knew how.

Imagine your local government sends this:

𝑇𝑠𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑖 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔: 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆. Updates to come in the next hour. Stay calm.

Now imagine the impact on screen reader users.

End of thread.

#a11y #accessibility

I made the thread into a post so you can share it with your social media manager or your mom or whatever:

“Don’t Use Fake Bold or Italic in Social Media”
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/03/dont-use-fake-bold-or-italic-in-social-media.html

#a11y #accessibility

VoiceOver / iPadOS 18.3.1 / Safari

Doesn’t announce the fake bold nor fake italic.

I’ve shared 6 screen reader experiences.

The takeaway should be DO NOT use sites like YayText•com to make fake bold or italic text (whether on Bluesky, LinkedIn, etc.).

If you’re a tester, you may see the speech logs show the characters. These are lies: https://adrianroselli.com/2020/08/speech-viewer-logs-of-lies.html

Now…

TalkBack 15.2 / Chrome 133.

Announces the fake bold and fake italic as if it is regular text. TalkBack started doing this in 2021.

VoiceOver / macOS 15.3.1 / Safari 18.3.

Doesn’t announce the fake bold nor fake italic.

I’m using default settings. Some users will have different settings, but understand screen reader users have the same range of skill & experience with their kit as everyone else has with their own kit.

Try with your built-in screen reader. Resources: https://adrianroselli.com/2022/11/your-accessibility-claims-are-wrong-unless.html#SRs (anchor link)

Narrator / Windows 11 24H2 / Edge 133.

Doesn’t announce the fake bold nor fake italic.

Please 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 eat the shrimp scampi in the fridge. It is tasty 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢.

(This is an example I am using to make a recording of how it’s announced by some screen readers. I will eventually reply with those videos.)

JAWS 2025 / Chrome 133.

Announces each fake bold and fake italic letter individually, including its case and style.

#a11y #accessibility

NVDA 2024.4.2 / Firefox 135.

Doesn’t announce the fake bold nor fake italic.

#a11y #accessibility

Those two videos account for ~78% of primary screen reader use (https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey10/#primary) so I’m stopping there for today.

Anyway, this is not new information: https://adrianroselli.com/2018/01/improving-your-tweet-accessibility.html#Unicode

And please don’t reflexively blame screen readers:
https://adrianroselli.com/2021/10/blaming-screen-readers-red-flag.html

#a11y #accessibility

@fedijedi Not in long-form writing, no. There is no need. It introduces confusion for some and signals the writer is more interested in the lingo (and maybe didn’t really test it with users).

You want to use it on social media or in emails, go for it. But a copywriter for a marketing site has the time and tools.

That widget that shows the estimated reading time left in your posts? Yeah, you don’t need it. It was probably lying anyway.
https://adrianroselli.com/2024/09/under-engineered-estimated-reading-time-feature.html

Weird how often we over-engineer stuff that doesn’t really do anything.

Teen Vogue again showing popular press how to do journalism that challenges state abuse of power.

“ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know”
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/ice-watch-programs-immigrants-how-to-start