This #Paralympics, show your support and #Praise4Para with these features on Twitter

Twitter’s real-time nature gives sports fans front-row access to the latest from their favourite games. We saw this during the #TokyoOlympics – right from the start of the Games to India’s historic seven-medal finish. From the legendary moments, to the replays, analysis, and camaraderie—it all happened on Twitter. Now, it’s time for the Paralympians to shine bright at the #Paralympics and on Twitter. As the action unfolds in conversations on the service, here are some fun, interesting ways through which sports enthusiasts can support their favourite athletes and be a part of the Paralympics conversation –

• Twitter Emojis: Twitter has introduced several custom emojis for the #Paralympics. Fans worldwide can unlock the official Paralympics emoji by Tweeting with #Paralympics throughout the Games, and can also unlock sport-specific emojis like #ParaRowing, #ParaArchery, #ParaSwimming, among others. Moreover, sports enthusiasts from across the world can also cheer on their country using three-character country hashtags that will unlock a flag emoji of each nation – such as #IND, and many more. For the Indian fans, a special emoji can be unlocked by Tweeting with #Praise4Para. Twitter is also home to a series of custom emojis for medals that will unlock upon tweeting #Gold, #Silver or #Bronze.

• Twitter Topics: Topics use machine learning to find related Tweets on a subject. Twitter has Topics across numerous interest categories that one can follow to see what’s happening on the things that matter to them. When one chooses to follow a Topic, they’ll see Tweets from a whole host of accounts that are experts, fans or just tend to talk about that thing a lot on Twitter. For the Paralympics, too, Twitter has a dedicated Topic that fans can follow for the most recent updates and conversations around their favourite para-sport.

• Introducing #WeThe15: Launched on the 19th of August, 2021, the WeThe15 (@WeThe15) campaign is a 10-year journey that aims to transform the lives of one billion disabled people. With the ongoing Paralympics, people can follow WeThe15 (@WeThe15) and use related hashtags to be a part of the conversations with about 15% of the disabled world population. The #WeThe15 hashtag is available in 17 languages, including Hindi #हम15.

• Accessibility features: A large number of Twitter audiences consciously make use of the service’s accessibility features. Thus, Twitter is always learning from their experience and upgrading to make this experience better and more wholesome. Some recent developments to Twitter’s accessibility suite include –
  • Captions for Twitter Spaces: Spaces is Twitter’s live audio feature that lets people have intimate conversations through voice. To make Spaces more accessible, Twitter has enabled captions so people can read what’s being said as text.
  • Captions for Voice Tweets: Twitter introduced voice Tweets last year. Learning from people’s feedback and to enhance accessibility of the feature, Twitter enabled captions for voice Tweets this year in July.
  • Picture descriptions: When Tweeting images, people can also add descriptions to their images to make their content more accessible for people who are visually impaired.
  • Tweeting from the web using VoiceOver on macOS: On macOS, people can also Tweet by using VoiceOver instead of having to type out their Tweet.

Twitter is constantly working to enhance its usability and has also been sharing updates on the same via its @TwitterA11y account.