Do you enjoy a good rant? I know I do. Well, I’ve got a winner for you today.
For those of you who don’t know who I am and what I do, my name is Aaron Di Blasi and I am the Sr. Project Management Professional for Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd., an award-winning digital marketing agency that I founded in 2004 to give businesses and organizations access to cutting edge digital marketing services.
I began serving clients with disabilities in 2006, twenty years ago this year. I have been helping disabled business owners to navigate both mainstream and access technology since that time. And it is through this lens of experience that I would like to speak to you today.
Two of Mind Vault’s current clients are Donna J. Jodhan and Dr. Kirk Adams, among others. I bring up these two clients specifically because we handle their podcast distribution on an ongoing basis.
Both of these clients have the right to expect that everything we create for them will be as accessible as possible. Because that is, after all, what we promise them, very specifically. Well, today I would like to give you a glimpse at how this responsibility often works out in practice.
I have a quote that I keep at the end of my signature: “The greatest barrier to accessibility is indifference.” I authored this quote after 15 years of working for blind and disabled business owners. The lesson is this. In today’s digital world, the greatest power that any human being can wield is the choice to ignore the needs of another human being.
That is indifference. It means, quite simply, that you do not care. And making another human being care about something that they do not care about can be quite an arduous task. It is also, in my humble opinion, the greatest barrier to accessibility today.
Why should they care? Because every single human being will experience some form of “disability” in their lifetime. This is not an “us” or “them” scenario. This is a “no one gets a free pass” scenario that is based purely on age and circumstance.
And that is why I believe that every human being should have a vested interest in helping persons with disabilities. It is only a matter of time before you will seek that very same assistance yourself.
However, my personal beliefs aside, the world that we must operate in often has a very different opinion about how, when or if that assistance could, should or will be provided.
Today I’m here to show you exactly what that kind of interaction looks like. I’m naming names and providing original email replies, in the hopes that this will move the Libsyn.com podcasting platform to take basic accessibility much more seriously.
On November 2, 2026, a blind reader wrote in to let us know that they had really enjoyed a client podcast, and wanted to share it. But they couldn’t. Because the share buttons were not labeled. The buttons worked. But a blind person had no way to know which button did what unless they actually clicked it. Share icons with no labels. On one of the largest podcast distribution platforms in the world.
That is, after all, why we chose Libsyn.com to serve our clients in the first place. Libsyn.com (Liberated Syndication) has been around since 2004. Launched by a group of university students, it holds the distinction of being the world’s very first podcast hosting and distribution network.
Because it predates almost all other platforms in the industry, it is widely considered a highly stable “legacy” host. To which we can now add the distinction of it being a highly “indifferent” host to accessibility as well. As you will see from the following communications.
On November 4, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET I reached out to the Libsyn Support Team with the following request:
BEGIN SUPPORT TICKET
Hello Libsyn Support Team,
I’m writing to report an accessibility problem on your podcast episode pages that affects blind listeners, and to ask that it be fixed as soon as possible.
My name is Aaron Di Blasi, and I’m the President of Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. We publish Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams on Libsyn for Dr. Kirk Adams, the former President and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. Accessibility is at the heart of my work. I publish Top Tech Tidbits, which reaches more than 50,000 blind, low vision and disabled readers each week, and Access Information News, which reaches more than 49,000. I also founded the PWD Media Co-Op, which shares news with more than 200,000 blind and disabled readers per post.
One of our readers let us know that the share buttons on our episode pages aren’t labeled, and they’re right. Here’s one example, from Dr. Adams’s show (show ID 542867):
Next to the word “Share” there are five buttons: Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Reddit and email. Each one is just an icon, with no text and no label of any kind, so a screen reader announces every one of them as “button.” A blind visitor can’t tell which button does what without pressing each one to find out.
Each button needs a text label that a screen reader can read, such as “Share on Facebook,” “Share on X,” “Share on LinkedIn,” “Share on Reddit” and “Share by email.” It’s a small change, and it would make a real difference.
This isn’t limited to Dr. Adams’s show. The episode pages of another show we manage on Libsyn have the same five unlabeled buttons, so this looks like part of your standard page template rather than anything specific to our shows.
While we were checking, we found the same kind of problem in a few other places on that page:
- The round play button isn’t a real button. It has no label, and the Tab key never reaches it.
- The audio progress slider has no label.
- The RSS feed icon has no label.
- The Spotify badge is read aloud as “
spotify-podcast-badge-blk-grn-330x80.”
This matters a great deal to us, not just for Dr. Adams, but for the other blind clients we serve, and for every blind listener who visits a Libsyn show page. Could you please let me know whether this can be fixed, and roughly when?
Thank you for looking into it.
Best regards,
END SUPPORT TICKET
On November 4, 2026 at 9:23 AM ET, just 23 minutes later, Libsyn responded as follows. Amazing turnaround time? Or boilerplate response? I’ll let you decide.
BEGIN TICKET RESPONSE
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Libsyn Support!
Thank you for reaching out and bringing this to our attention. I have gone ahead and passed this information along to our development team. From what I have access to, I can see that player accessibility improvements are already in their queue and something actively being investigated.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to provide any timeline to these updates, but I can assure you we take this seriously and will continue to actively work on improving our player and platform at large.
If there is anything else we can assist with in the meantime, please let us know!
Best Regards,
Tier 1 Podcaster Support
https://libsyn.com/support/
support@libsyn.com 📧️
END TICKET RESPONSE
And then, finally, on November 6, 2026 at 10:01 AM ET, we received the following.
BEGIN CLOSED SUPPORT TICKET
Hello,
The Libsyn team responded to your ticket inquiry a few days ago and have yet to hear back. Your ticket status has therefore been updated to solved. If you still have questions or feel you still need a resolution, please feel free to reply so we can assist you further.
Details regarding your ticket inquiry can be found below.
Sincerely,
Libsyn Customer Service Team
---
Ticket Number: 230562
Ticket Title: Accessibility Issue: Share Buttons on Libsyn Episode Pages Have No Labels
Ticket Status: Solved
Ticket Link: five.libsynsupport.com/hc/requests/230562
END CLOSED SUPPORT TICKET
And there you have it. Status: Solved. For whom? I’m not sure. Solved for Libsyn it looks like. Solved for blind users? No. As of November 6, 2026, the share buttons on that episode page still have no labels, and neither do its RSS feed icon, Spotify badge or show artwork link. This is indifference at work.
And so, I ask you this. What can we do from here? But advocate? How do we make providers like this care that their decisions are excluding others? The sad reality is that we can’t. At least not directly.
But we can call them out for it. In the hopes that such notoriety will encourage them to alter direction. Burying accessibility requests under solved tickets that “will not be able to provide any timeline” is just another way of saying that you don’t care about accessibility or the people who rely on it.
You can do better Libsyn.com.
PS: On November 7, 2026 at 11:01 AM I received the following follow up. What do you think? How did they do?
BEGIN SUPPORT RATING REQUEST
Hello Aaron Di Blasi, PMP,
We’d love to hear what you think of our customer service. Please take a moment to answer one simple question by clicking either link below:
How would you rate the support you received?
✅ Good, I’m satisfied
❌ Bad, I’m unsatisfied
END SUPPORT RATING REQUEST
” The greatest barrier to accessibility is indifference. “
Aaron Di Blasi, PMP
Engineer, Educator, Advocate, Publisher & Journalist
President & Sr. PMP, Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd., PR Director: AT-Newswire, Publisher: AI-Weekly, Top Tech Tidbits, Access Information News, Title II Today
Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
President, Sr. Project Management Professional (2006 — Present)
Innovative ideas. Solutions that perform.
Top Tech Tidbits
Publisher (2020 — Present)
The Week’s News in Access Technology
Access Information News
Publisher (2022 — Present)
The Week’s News in Access Information
AI-Weekly
Publisher (2024 — Present)
The Week’s News in Artificial Intelligence
AT-Newswire.com
PR Director (2024 — Present)
Access Technology’s Digital Newswire
Title II Today
Publisher (2025 — Present)
The Month’s News in Title II Compliance
PWD Media Co-Op
Founder (2025 — Present)
Amplifying Disability Voices Through Collective Reach
Connect With Me:
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