Today Facebook is rolling out automatic alternative (alt) text on Facebook for iOS.
Automatic alt text provides visually impaired and blind people with a text description of a photo using object recognition technology. Starting today, people using a screen reader to access Facebook on an iOS device will hear a list of items that may be shown in a photo. This feature is now available in English for people in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. We plan to roll it out to more platforms, languages, and markets soon.
While this technology is still nascent, tapping its current capabilities to describe photos is a huge step toward providing our visually impaired community with the same benefits and enjoyment that everyone else gets from photos on Facebook.
Why automatic alt text
Every day, people share more than 2 billion photos across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
While visual content provides a fun and expressive way for people to communicate online, consuming it and creating it pose challenges for people with low vision or blindness. A recent study we conducted with Cornell University showed that although blind people are interested in visual content on social media, they often feel frustrated and even excluded or isolated because they can’t fully participate in conversations centered on photos and videos.
Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected. This means that we want everyone to have equal access to connect with others. Worldwide, more than 39 million people are blind, and more than 246 million have a severe visual impairment. As Facebook becomes an increasingly visual experience, we hope our new automatic alternative text technology will help the blind community experience Facebook the same way others enjoy it.
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