Social media can connect disabled people across distance, language, and isolation. It can also shut people out through:
- Unreadable images and memes
- Auto-playing videos without captions
- Complex, ever-changing interfaces
- Harassment and moderation that doesn’t protect disabled users
This page focuses on practical ways to make posts, accounts, and campaigns more accessible.
Across platforms, some core practices include:
- Alt text / image descriptions – Describe important visual content so screen reader users and others can access it.
- Captions for video – Prefer human-made or edited captions; auto-captioning alone is often inaccurate.
- Readable text – Avoid huge blocks of text, use headings or spacing, and avoid fancy fonts that break screen readers.
- Content warnings – Short, clear labels (CW/TW) so people can decide what they have capacity to see.
- Avoid text in images only – Or, if you must, repeat the text in the post or in alt text.
Different platforms have different:
- Locations for alt text fields
- Captioning tools or lack of them
- Character limits that interact with access practices
- Accessibility bugs that come and go with updates
Contributors are encouraged to add sections for:
- Mastodon / Fediverse
- Twitter / X
- Facebook
- Instagram
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Reddit
- Discord and other chat platforms
Each section can cover:
- Where to find and how to use accessibility features
- Known issues and partial workarounds
- Community norms for content warnings, descriptions, and tagging
¶ Access for Creators and Moderators
Accessibility isn’t only about what followers see. It’s also about:
- Whether creators can schedule and manage posts with assistive tech
- Whether moderation tools are accessible to disabled moderators
- Whether analytics and dashboards are usable with screen readers or keyboard only
- The cognitive load of constant notifications and algorithmic feeds
This page should include insights from disabled creators, moderators, and organizers.
Many disabled people face:
- Targeted harassment and dogpiling
- Ableist slurs and stereotypes
- Punishment for naming disability and access needs
Tools that matter:
- Robust blocking and muting
- Filters for words, phrases, and content types
- Privacy controls and locked accounts
- Community-level moderation policies that explicitly protect disabled users
These topics intersect with digital disability justice (see /tech/digital-disability-justice) and with legal rights in different countries.
This page can eventually host:
- Shareable mini-guides (“Alt Text 101,” “Captioning Basics”)
- Templates people can copy into community rules or campaign guidelines
- Examples of accessible posts and threads
The goal is to make accessibility practices normal, expected, and shared, not a rare “extra.”