A place for people who are chronically ill, mentally ill, disabled, and friends/families/allies to come together, meet, share knowledge and random banter, and just about anything else.

Disabled Social keeps Disability Justice as a priority in building an intentional, supportive, accessible community, where we do not rely on unsustainable and exploitive technology and systems. You can read more about the principles of Disability Justice here: www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/10-principles-of-disability-justice

Current team: Aaidanbird (admin), McCullohMD (Admin, tech), Emily_rj (mod), elmiller0330 (mod)

There has been some concern expressed from members of the disability community on Twitter over people that have been blocked by some of the people running disabled.social. People who have been blocked over on Twitter either individually or as part of a block chain, are welcome here. The admins and moderators will not be personally blocking anyone on disabled.social unless there are threats of violence or overt defamatory claims made (which is a rules violation, and your account will be handled accordingly). There are several of us running this instance, so if there is an issue you need to raise, hopefully there is someone here that you are comfortable speaking with.

ALL are welcome here.

Sign Ups

When signing up, please indicate both why you want to join disabled.social and more importantly, how you plan to use the instance.

We have many organizations, charities, non-profits, adaptive tech developers, attorneys, medical providers with businesses, etc. interested in joining the instance, and we want to understand how you plan on using our space which is intended as a support space for disabled people.

We do not allow marketing to disabled people or mining them for your own commercial gains under any circumstances.

Recruiting for research projects may be allowed, but they must be submitted to our team for approval before posting.

Failure to answer how you plan to use the instance will result in rejection of your application.

Rules

"Be excellent to each other" is easier said than done, and means different things to different people.

The following rules are a (non-exhaustive) list of behaviors that may lead to deletion of toots, silencing or suspension of accounts, at the discretion of the instance moderators, as described in our Terms.

Please scroll through the entirety and review all of the rules.

Please report offensive behavior to the contact email address provided. Reports will be kept confidential.

• We do not tolerate discriminatory behaviour or content promoting/advocating the oppression of members of marginalised groups. These groups may be characterized by any of the following (though this list is naturally incomplete): Ethnicity or race; Gender identity or expression; Sexual identity or expression; Physical characteristics or age; Disability or illness; Nationality, residency, citizen status; Wealth or education; Religious affiliation, agnosticism, or atheism; Neurodivergence
• We do not tolerate threatening behavior, stalking, or doxxing.
• We do not tolerate harassment, including block evasion, brigading, dogpiling, or any other form of contact with a user who has stated that they do not wish to be contacted.
• We do not tolerate mobbing, including name-calling, intentional misgendering, or deadnaming.
• We do not tolerate violent nationalist propaganda, fascism, Nazi symbolism, or promoting the ideology of National Socialism.
• We do not tolerate conspiracy narratives or other reactionary myths supporting or leading to the above-mentioned (and/or similar) behavior.
• Scientific discussion is critical to our community. However, conspiracy theories related to anti-vaxx and COVID19 without any scientific basis will not be tolerated.
• If you wish to recruit for a research project, do not spam the server and do not tag random members. All research recruitment must be sent to us first, where we will evaluate if it's okay to post for our members or if it is best to do recruitment elsewhere. The safety of our members is paramount.

Actions intended to damage this instance or its performance may lead to immediate temporary or permanent account suspension.

Content that is illegal in the United States will be deleted and may lead to immediate account suspension.

General Best Practices

The list below is a collection of behaviors that we expect to see from our users. If you see a user go against these best practices in a way that bothers you, please file a report and we will talk to them. While these best practices are designed to be guidelines for a good communal instance, repeated malicious unwillingness to follow the best practices will be considered just like breaking a rule.

• In general, use the tools provided to foster a considerate and accessible atmosphere. This includes the liberal use of content warnings (especially on potentially disturbing or controversial topics), and alt-text captioning of media files.
• When possible, provide credit for creative works in your posts that are not your own.
• Uninvited comments about another user's personal choices, lifestyle or family are strongly discouraged and may be considered harassment. Inappropriate sexual attention, comments about appearance and implication of physical contact will not be tolerated toward any non-consenting user.
• If you post sexual content or gore, use content warnings.
• If you post advertisements, use a content warning. Advertisements should not be excessive or automated.
• Bots may only interact with a user when they're invited by that user to do so.
• Automated posts and high-frequency posts should be unlisted (rendering visible to everybody, but not appearing on the local timeline) to keep the local timeline of our instance a place of community dialogue and human interaction. This extends to bots, feed posters, Twitter "retweets" and Twitter crossposts with broken mentions ("…@twitter.com"). Crossposter accounts that stop being active participants in our community may be removed at the discretion of the moderators.
• In discussions, please remain civil, do not insult the people you're talking to. When using sarcasm, please indicate with /s.
• Please be mindful of your language, and avoid the use of ableist and saneist language. We recognize that sometimes it can be hard to find another word to clearly communicate what you are trying to say. We have created a resource to help you find alternative language while still being able to convey your point.
• Please use captions in uploaded videos.
• There are times when users just want to vent about their situation. Unless requested explicitly, please do not drop unsolicited advice. In some cases, it might be ok to ask OP directly if they want advice.
• Spam should only be reported to us if it originates on the server or if you come across a server that is full of spammy accounts. Individual spam accounts should be reported to the originating server, not disabled.social.

Best Practices to Assist Screen Readers

Some of our users make use of screen readers. There are a few things that make for a smoother experience:

• Reminder to alt-text your images. If you are low on spoons, please use #AltTextHelp and someone from the community should be able to help and provide it.
• Avoid using multiple emojis in a row. Ex: putting 3 smiley faces in a row, or 60 red flags.
• If you want to use hashtags throughout a toot, please do so sparingly. Best to put the majority of them at the end of the toot.
• Use CamelCase for the hashtags. Ex: #DisabledSocial
• Please use as few emoji in usernames or screen names as possible (preferably none)
• Please don't scatter emojis between words in an alternating pattern. Ex: word followed by clapping hands emoji, repeated indefinitely. Use them sparingly.
• When sharing a link, please provide a brief description of where the link directs to.

(These best practices were inspired by the Terms of chaos.social. Thank you!)

Mutual Aid

The posting and sharing of mutual aid and fundraisers are welcome here on disabled.social because they are critical for the survival of some of our members. Disability payments are often woefully inadequate to meet the much higher cost of living as a chronically ill and/or disabled person. These types of things are sometimes the only way that someone can afford rent, can afford to move out of a terrible housing situation, to be able to afford a mobility aid, etc. Please do not report these posts as spam. If they bother you, you can filter them out of your feed. And regarding the hashtags used: that is up to the discretion of the member who is posting. They know which hashtags are best for their specific situation.

When doing a mutual aid request, please do not specifically @ a specific user or derail a non-related thread. This is exploitative behavior that is breaking personal boundaries. Please keep it as a general ask (which you are allowed to repost) AND/OR share it on mutual aid specific threads.

Attribution

This instance uses Mutant Standard emoji, which are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Admin/Mod Commitment to Non-Commercialization Statement

We all would like to reiterate that regardless of what any of us do for work, research, or advocacy, we will not be individually trying to commercialize the disabled.social instance.

Instance Blog

Our instance has a blog! You can check it out here.

Donations

If you wish to donate to help offset the costs of keeping the servers running, we have a Patreon setup at https://www.patreon.com/disabledsocial. Any donations are appreciated, however if you are in any way financially struggling but would like to contribute, please contact us for other ideas on how you can help!

1. I am at least 16 years of age or older on the date of registration for the disabled.social instance.
2. I agree to not discriminate or promote/advocate content that oppresses members of marginalized groups (see rules for examples of groups).
3. I agree to not threaten, stalk, or dox people.
4. I agree to not harass others using tactics such as brigading, dogpiling, or any other form of contact with a user who has stated that they do not wish to be contacted.
5. I agree to not engage in mobbing, name-calling, intentional misgendering, or deadnaming.
6. I agree to not promote/advocate violent nationalist propaganda, fascism, Nazi symbolism, or promoting the ideology of National Socialism.
7. I agree to not promote/advocate conspiracy narratives or other reactionary myths supporting or leading to the above-mentioned (and/or similar) behavior.
8. I agree to not promote/advocate unsubstantiated conspiracy theories related to anti-vaxx and COVID19.
9. I agree to alt text images, caption videos, and try my best to follow the best practices for screen readers.
10. I agree to not be spammy (e.g., spamming feeds with giveaways, crypto, etc.)
11. I agree to not post, promote, or advocate any content that is illegal in the United States.
12. I agree to not use disabled.social as a way to grow a commercial business, market products, or as a way to profit off of disabled people. EXCEPTION: Disabled people who sell products as part of mutual aid efforts and survival (e.g., Etsy shops, personal businesses, written works like books, etc.)
13. I agree to use content warnings where appropriate.
14. I agree to follow the remainder of the rules and adhere to the best practices outlined on the server about page.
15. I agree to not use LLMs or GenerativeAI or SMLs like Grok, ChatGPT, and others to generate text, pictures, videos, or any content to copy/paste into posts. Using AI tools for accessibility such as transcribing or translation is the exception.

1. cubsex.pictures: suspension
2. mytter.jp: suspension