[Mn-parents] Amazon/Kindle Protest in Seattle

[Steve Jacobson]

Over the past month or so, you have likely read of the effort of Amazon.com to promode the use of Kindle devices and Amazon's Whispercast system to school systems.  Among other things, they are making 
Kindle devices available to K-12 schools free of charge.  The Whispercast system allows the distribution of Kindle materials to other devices in the classroom.  As you may recall, there was hope early on that 
Kindles would be made fully accessible to blind persons since early versions did allow most books to be read with speech.  However, apparent pressure from publishers and a general lack of interest on the part 
of the Kindle's developers has resulted 
in very little progress.  Even if such devices are made available to schools free, it is a violation of a number of federal laws for schools to use devices that are not accessible when other similar accessible 
devices exist.  E-books in the Kindle format can be read on the I Pad, and some attention has been drawn to that fact indicating that the system is somewhat accessible.  However, the "apps" that read kindle 
e-books on the 
I Pad do not provide full access to the power available to sighted kids using the same apps.  even though the ability to read a book using speech is provided, the navigation is very basic.  One can start, stop, 
and pause reading.  There is no provision for the blind person to be able to, for example, navigate to a specific page or to see how a word is spelled.  Since text is spoken by a Kindle voice and not 
by VoiceOver, braille displays cannot see the text even though other I pad functions work well with braille displays.  A blind user does not have the ability to look up a specific word in the text as can sighted 
kids using the same app.  In short, Kindle reading devices are not 
accessible, and software that might be supported on other devices provides only inferior accessibility.

For these reasons, Jennifer Dunnam, Mike Sahyun and I journeyed to Seattle, Washington to join over one hundred people from around the United States on December 12 to protest AMAZON.COM's pushing 
this system aggressively into the country's school 
systems without making these devices accessible.  It was approximately forty degrees and at times it rained fairly hard as we carried signs and brought our message to Amazon.COM.  During 
our two-hour protest, a number of speakers addressed messages to AMAZON.COM.  A particularly touching message came from Michael Hingson, the man who escaped from the World Trade Center with his 
dog guide when those towers were attacked on September 11.  He wrote a book about his experience called "Thunder Dog," and noted how frustrating and even ironic it is to be an author of a book 
published on Kindle devices, but because he is bline, he cannot read the very book he published on the Kindle.  We also heard from former Governor Paterson of New York, George Kirscher who is known as 
the father of access to electronic books for blind persons, Dr. 
Marc Maurer, Mark Riccobono, and a number of other speakers.  Letters prepared by persons throughout the country were hand delivered to the Amazon.COM building as well.  Naturally, there was an 
assortment of cheers, and an interesting presentation of "The Grinch who stole e-books".  Are there any guesses as to whom the term "grinch" was applied?

Time will tell as to what affect our protest will have.  At the very least, AMAZON.COM saw hard-working and dedicated blind persons who are being hurt by their corporate decisions marching in front of their 
building in a chilling rain.  They would have seen the looks of determination on our faces and our resolve to see their actions changed as even the rain did not detour us.  There were promises of additional 
accessibility made several days before our protest, but these promises are lacking in details and appear to be a year into the future at least.  Would even these promises have come without our protest?  Will 
something change?  The law and certainly the spirit of the law is pretty clear on this.  I believe AMAZON.COM and the Kindle will have to change if they wish to be in the educational market in the long run.  
Nevertheless, it could be that some of us may need to 
make another trip or two to Seattle to help them understand more quickly than they are likely to on their own.

Here is a link to one news story about our protest:

http://www.kplu.org/post/blind-protesters-march-amazon-over-kindle-accessibility

We will certainly continue to watch this issue closely and do what must be done to get this pattern of exclusion changed.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson