How the Internet Has Made Activism More Accessible for Disabled People

Mollie is a disabled content creator and DEI advocate. Her work focuses on pushing for inclusivity within the gaming space and industry, being incredibly vocal of how games themselves can be a better representation of the gaming community as a whole.

Mollie can be found on Twitter at @littlemotac_

Protest marches have long been a critical part of political change around the world. We’ve probably all seen the black and white, grainy films of passionate people marching through the streets of Washington D.C, or overhead drone footage of heartfelt activists filling the narrow roads of London, Chile, and India. Marches have long been used as a way to put pressure on governments to enact change. Huge numbers of people all showing up in solidarity for a cause, visually showing politicians what “The People” want, and they are often upheld as the ultimate form of protest or political statement. 

However, unfortunately marches can be incredibly inaccessible for some disabled people. Even in progressive spaces, accessibility can often be an afterthought, or not a consideration at all. This meant the disabled community has had to find alternative ways for disabled activists to protest, and the internet has played a huge part in creating spaces for that.

If you consider a typical protest march through London, it probably involves a lot of physical activity, large crowds, lots of stimulation, uneven and cobbled roads, talks and speeches with no sign language interpreters, among other obstructions for various disabled people. There is a larger conversation to be had of progressive and leftist spaces not keeping disabled people’s needs in mind, but I will not go into it further here as that could be a whole different article in itself.

Before the internet, disabled activists had to navigate the issues of physical protesting and marching. In the 1970s, hundreds of people with a diverse array of disabilities occupied several federal Health, Education and Welfare buildings in the US to demand the introduction of civil rights laws for disabled people. These became known as the 504 Sit-ins, as they were to demand the passing of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as a national law that would protect discrimination based on a disability. The longest of these occupations took place in San Francisco, lasting almost four weeks, and required a lot of planning and care as most of the protestors were disabled. The sit-in soon became a multitude of acts of community care and mutual-aid, with volunteers and protestors ensuring medications were brought in, interpreters were present, and bathroom breaks were coordinated, which are accommodations often not seen within marches. Without these acts of community, the sit-in could not have continued for as long as it did. Plans and acts of care are often not considered or arranged for modern marches and protests.

After the 504 Sit-ins, the push for disability rights in the US led to what is famously known now as The Capitol Crawl – named so because many physically disabled activists discarded their mobility aids and crawled up the steps of the Capitol building in Washington D.C as a demonstration of the impacts of inaccessible architecture. The juxtaposition of disabled people having to climb up the steps of a federal building that they had every right to enter but was inaccessible to them, so they could demand their civil rights, was a perfect example of how access to activism is not always granted for disabled people.

With the development and common use of the internet, it has allowed disabled people to create online communities, and with the lack of inclusion for us in traditional protests, many disability activism leaders created new ways of demanding their rights or calling the community to action. We see this in movements such as #CripTheVote.

#CripTheVote was a campaign organised by Alice Wong, Andrew Pulrang, and Gregg Beratan across X (formerly Twitter) after the 2016 US Presidential election. The aim was to get voters and politicians involved in disability issues and policies in the United States, and to get disabled people more involved in elections. The campaign continued until 2022, and during its time it was used as a space to discuss how the outbreak of Coronavirus impacted disabled people, offering resources for this, and offering election resources and discussions. It was a place for disabled people to be able to discuss politics that centred them.

One of the organisers of #CripTheVote, Alice Wong, also founded the Disability Visibility Project in 2014. The purpose of the project is to show that disabled experiences matter and amplify our voices in online spaces. It has done this in many ways online, through a podcast interviewing a diverse cast of activists and creators, through blog posts, social media, and YouTube videos.

The Triple Cripples are another example of the importance of online disability movements. TC consists of Kym Oliver and Jumoke Abdullahi, two black disabled women who felt that the experiences of people of colour, disabled people, and people of marginalised genders don’t often get told, and so they decided to spotlight these stories. They do this through creating content online alongside giving talks and workshops at various universities and organisations. TC’s online content pushes to educate on how people can be more inclusive and accessible, and also be intersectional with both.

Some of these examples may seem like they are not overtly or obviously political, but the fact of the matter is that as disabled people we are constantly ‘politicised just for living – our bodies, our independence, our love. It is often debated in politics whether businesses should be accessible to disabled people, as it would be at a cost to the business to do so, whilst discarding the needs and feelings of disabled people just wanting to go about their days. In the US, disabled people receiving certain benefits could not have more than $2000 of savings in their bank accounts at any one time some of the benefits they receive would be cut. In the UK, means tested benefits for disabled people, such as Employment and Support Allowance, can be cut if you decide to live or marry a partner. This means a lot of disabled people have to decide whether to choose between their livelihood or living with the person they love. Our very existence is politicised, and so any type of movement or campaign that pushes for our visibility or for society to see us as we see ourselves, is a political one.

Additionally a huge part of making movements accessible for disabled people is that  those movements can become stronger with us than they would be without us, as now a cause can reach more people. #AltTextPalestine has, for example, become a project and hashtag on X (formerly Twitter) within community spaces for disabled people. The purpose of it is to ensure that information surrounding the war on Palestine is made accessible to everyone through adding image ALT text and captions to posts from Palestinians. Movements like this enable more people to be informed and care about important causes, making the movement stronger and allowing people to be informed of ongoing events. 

Although these campaigns are all large, organised efforts, there are also smaller ways disabled people have been able to organise, for example, through mutual aid. Mutual aid has long been used in disabled an queer communities to support each other through food or monetarily when needed, and this only expanded as the internet became commonly used. With platforms like GoFundMe and PayPal, communities are able to support each other and help people within their communities from miles away. This form of community care is a form of activism in itself. With many countries not providing adequate healthcare for disabled people, whether this be due to underfunded social healthcare, like the NHS in the UK, or private healthcare, like in the US, mutual aid enables disabled people to seek treatment they otherwise wouldn’t have access to and should. 

Disabled people have also now been able to make our very own platforms for education through social media. X and TikTok have become hubs for disabled content creators to share their lives and motivate people to understand and care about disability rights, which, due to the systemic ableism in society, most people never had knowledge of before. Up until around 50 years ago in the US, there was no Americans with Disabilities Act, and as recently as 15 years ago in the UK there was no Equality Act, meaning there were no or very unspecific laws that protected disabled people from being discriminated against. Although these laws are meant to protect disabled people, they obviously do not prevent inequity entirely. Legally, disabled people are able to be in any space we wish – schools, workplaces, businesses – but lack of accessibility, accommodations and hidden discrimination means that many people go their whole lives without interacting with a disabled person at all. If we are constantly hidden from view, how can we be heard? Through content creation, disabled creators have made themselves visible and been able to directly tell non-disabled people what we need and want. Previously, we had been spoken for, and through social media we can use our own voices to express our needs.

This is also true for the large push for accessibility within gaming. Online creators have been using videos and social media platforms for years now to show gaming companies that we are a large audience and that everyone benefits when more people can be involved. It is incredibly draining to constantly prove that we belong in spaces, but the internet has made it easier for us to demand our needs be met so we can take up space within the gaming community. Similarly to us unable to be in some spaces due to inaccessibility, the same is said for gaming and entertainment. For so long, we have not been seen in gaming media, whether that be marketing, content creation, employment or as characters, we have had to make it known through social media platforms that we are here, and we deserve to take up space and play the games we love.

I think it would be foolish not to point out that the internet is often not a safe or fun place for disabled people, it gives people the ability to be ableist and harass people from anonymous profiles. The internet grants people the ability to hide behind anonymous accounts and say whatever they want without repercussion, and unfortunately people take advantage of this lack of accountability online. However, it has also given disabled people a platform in a way we did not previously have. It has enabled us to share, to organise, to be visible in ways that are accessible for us.