Thread by @elizejackson

Estée Lauder is on a #DisabilityDongle rampage; first with their recent awards bait makeup app for blind people that is still in beta, and now this. It is shocking, all of it is extractive it, and none of it grants any agency to the disabled people they're virtue signaling.

https://twitter.com/devpost/status/1619749787674329095

I just joined the hackathon to see what I can learn. There seems to be no way to identify as disabled, and there's no way to mark disability as a specialty. But there's lots of these folks...

Their "Inclusive Tech Report" is really upsetting. No longer amused, just shaken. It's clear they won't succeed, but how much harm they do to disabled people in the process, it's seeming like it will be extensive. devpost-public.s3.amazonaws.com/ELC%20Hackatho…

I'm now over on the Slack page for this hackathon imploring participants to use their submissions to implore Estée Lauder to stop taking advantage of disabled people in this way. I'm so depressed.

Disabled people are not learning opportunities. Disabled people should not be used to hone your design skills. Don’t extract from disabled people to enhance your portfolio or signal your virtue.

The prize logic is really strange. Why is the 'idea' prize so much less than the 'technical prize' and shouldn't they both be trying to achieve what the 'Bonus Prize' gets the least amount of money for?

The only thing I can actually find about disability on this hackathon page are these three links under 'Inspiration'.

There's no judging criteria for demonstrating any sort of understanding or comprehension about disability. Only for identifying a problem (based on what knowledge? who cares) and then solving it (gotta be innovative).

Penny is right

https://twitter.com/ploker/status/1624751402693042176

In the Hackathon Slack channel, I asked participants how much of their prize money they would commit to the disabled people who informed their submission. So far I have received only one response. Laughter.

In this exchange, auden explains how the Hackathon organizers (Estée Lauder and Devpost) squished two braille characters together, communicating "Hack 4 A For Y" instead of "Hack for a11y"

https://twitter.com/audendum/status/1624928218070364160

I received an email from Devpost this morning. They did not engage in any way with the issues I have raised. They closed the email saying "if you have any other educational content we can share there we'll gladly look into them with the Estee Lauder team for consideration." 🙄