jump to article
AFB BLOG
Expanding possibilities for people with vision loss
Home  >  Blog  >  CAPTCHAs on MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster Shut Out Blind Users

CAPTCHAs on MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster Shut Out Blind Users


Posted by Carl Augusto on 11/15/2006 12:07:21 AM

Social networking sites MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster are all the rage these days. Even AFB is on MySpace! These sites have become the places to meet new people, update friends on life happenings, find jobs, network, and discover new music. MySpace, the top social networking site on the web, has now reached 47.3 million members and is growing by 160,000 new users a day according to news reports.

But signing up for these sites without sighted help is impossible for people who are blind or visually impaired because of CAPTCHAs—a visual verification tool used to keep spam out of sites that provide online services.

Today we released a new report and video on YouTube (embedded below) that talk about the accessibility of these sites. Check out the press release, and the full report.

And here's an accessible version of the video.

There are currently 2 comments

Re: CAPTCHAs on MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster Shut Out Blind Users
Posted by blake hardin on 1/9/2009 9:13:01 AM

Hello, if you want to get past captchas and be able to labe different links of a page google the word webvisum. Its a service and a firefox extention that you can use to solve captchas on myspace or any other sight. To register you have to have an invitation from someone or request an invitation code from the develupers. If you are interested in this service i can send you an invitation code if you will email me at
blakehardin5487@gmail.com
I have already used this on myspace and it works great. Peace.



Re: CAPTCHAs on MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster Shut Out Blind Users
Posted by Darragh [http://www.14u.ie/blogger/] on 11/16/2006 4:55:57 AM

If you would like a totally free and accessible blogging community, take a look at www.14u.ie This is a site created by a blind person with accessibility in mind. The site already has a number of Irish, American and English visiters and everyone is more than welcome to join. For any questions, please use the comment form on www.14u.ie



Post a Comment


AFB's Blog

Recent Posts:

Browse by Category:

Blogroll

Help expand possibilities for people with vision loss—Donate to AFB.

Having trouble reading the site? Check out the American Foundation for the Blind's accessibility options. You can change the colors on our site, increase the text size, and even change the font to something you find more readable. Screen reader users can move repetitive links out of their way, by pushing the navigation bar to the bottom of the page.
AFB would like to hear from you. Please contact us with your comments and suggestions.

Link to Us | Site Map | Policy Statement | Copyright © 2010 American Foundation for the Blind. All rights reserved.
Material provided on AFB.org is intended for information use only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. If you have any concerns about your health, please contact your health provider.
  Valid HTML 4.0!