Under the hood: Building accessibility tools for the visually impaired on Facebook

Today we are 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.