OK, I can try. But I am NOT a lawyer and I'm only saying this from my own personal experience and to the best of my knowledge from conversations with top lawyers and the government recently, not as an adviser here.
First of all, the general 'spirit' of the disability discrimination legislation is to make places reasonably accessible for people with any form of disability.
That means that each service provider has to plan in advance for how they are to cater for each type of disability, even if someone with that disability isn't there at the time.
And that planning should include a disability policy based on expert advice, and basic disability training so that all staff or people managing the environments have a good understanding of how people with different disabilities can best access not only the space, but any conversations taking place that are part of that service.
So, on a website, the space we're accessing is the mumsnet website. It should be DDA compliant with a high W3C rating allowing people with visual disabilities, epilepsy or an ASD (for example) to use things in an easy way, and preferably with a minimum of scrolling to help those with mobility difficulties. It could well be.
That's the background.
Against that background, the day to day activity of this service is parents communicating with each other and accessing information or taking part in debates on popular topics. Some have disabilities and therefore may need a degree of support, help or assistance to be able to join in effectively. My disability is one in point. A 'reasonable' amount of help, not 'every bit of help imaginable'. It's to be negotiated, discussed, planned for. My trouble is that I can write in a very lucid way, but have a brain that can 'cut out' or go into a terrible panic if faced with too much stress/personal attacks and which leaves me potentially very vulnerable in a hostile environment. I can avoid many of them, but a debate about whether we should be permitted to be born at all is not one I feel we should be excluded from by any comment saying "well just don't post there if you can't handle the heat" or similar thinking (not that this is what was said, I'm just trying to illustrate a point). It just needs careful management. I do a lot to handle my own risks, but I do need a degree of help sometimes.
The need to offer help/assistance comes into effect when someone says "hello, I have this disability, can you help me please". The service provider can go to the charity for that disability and get some handy quick tips for what to do, or what not to do. That shows a professional attitude to being asked.
The DDA also says that service providers must not provide a lower standard of service or to provide the service in a worse manner.
"Examples of a lower standard of service:
? making you wait until everybody else has been served
? giving you less choice about when you can use a service.
Examples of a worse manner of service:
? insulting or humiliating you because of your disability
? drawing unnecessary attention to the fact you are disabled"
In consultation with the government Minister recently, he made it quite clear that he intends these laws to be used to offer as equal a 'playing field' as possible for all those with a disability, in every part of life.
So, we can see from the comments made by parents with SN so far that many, many of them were frightened of posting on that thread, were really worried about some of its content. That's a big Red Flag in terms of deciding whether something is potentially insulting or humiliating for those taking part in the debate.
Would a more vulnerable person with a disability be comfortable taking part? Is anyone supporting them? Is there editorial control that reminds people of the need for respect so that they can show that they have acted responsibly? If someone does press the 'panic' button, as I did, and asks for help or an element of editorial overview to ensure it remains accessible for me and others like me, is the help reasonably tailored to that disability and fairly prompt and appropriate? Remember the aim is to enable the person with the disability to participate in what should be a reasonably respectful environment for that disability. I know that I was scared absolutely stiff, and I've had to rely on autism support to get me through the last few days.
Not every message thread can be respectful. It is not a question of squashing freedom of speech or making everyone totally politically-correct and more polite than the Queen herself. But ones on disability issues, where those with disabilities read them and note the comments, always end up saying a lot about the message board in question.
An overall 'barrage' of negative comments going on for day after day about the worth of those with disabilities can be a hostile and intimidating environment that stops those with a disability from participating and their voices being heard. It does not have to relate to a particular sentence said at a particular time - it can relate to lots of incidents over time, and it can be an overall picture of how the website in question tries to help 10% of the population to join in.
That's the overview.
Unfortunately, many service providers have a "knickers to you" approach so far. I'm sure that's not the case with mumsnet. It makes sense for websites to work with those that want to help them do their best for those with a disability so that it is indeed an equal place for people to be. After all, people with disabilities are customers too.
I'm absolutely sure mumsnet do many things right in this respect. But this particular thread needed a bit of editorial help, and so did I.