The recent turmoil with Twitter has prompted many online disabled people to think more deeply about what they really need and want from social media platforms.

Anxiety and debate over the direction of Twitter under Elon Musk’s ownership is affecting nearly every corner of Twitter, and of all online communities. Users and business partners wonder about Musk’s ability to manage the company and the application itself with a drastically reduced staff pushed to its limits. And many inside and outside Twitter’s user base worry about whether Musk’s purported “free speech absolutist” approach will make Twitter even more toxic than it has sometimes been in the past. Will Twitter become a liberating bastion of free expression? Or, as a recent Vox.com article suggests it might, will it devolve into “an even more intense cesspool of negative content than it already is?” This is an even more of a concern for marginalized groups that are vulnerable to bullying and various forms of prejudice, such as racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, xenophobia – and ableism, too.

#DisabilityTwitter in its various forms and communities has been particularly on edge, and in something of a holding pattern. A November 11 Time article notes that, “For people with disabilities who’d found an emotional support system on Twitter, anxiety over Musk’s upheaval was especially sharp.”

That’s partly because Twitter has been unusually well suited to disabled users and disability communities. Over time and gradual refinement, it became remarkably accessible to people with disabilities as online platforms go – though never of course completely accessible. Twitter has also served as a “megaphone” for disabled voices and disability issues. And despite social media’s reputation as a polarizing and isolating force in modern culture, Twitter arguably increased and enriched disabled people’s connections with wider society.

“Many people with disabilities use Twitter to organize, fundraise and run businesses,” notes Amanda Morris in the Washington Post. And Disabled blogger Imani Barbarin writes, “Platforms like Twitter helped us to feel less alone and gaslit by our experiences and allowed us to contextualize our experiences in a way that gave us peace.”

With so many aspects of Twitter’s future feeling uncertain, now is a good time to consider what disabled people need most from social media — from Twitter, from other popular platforms, or perhaps from something that hasn’t been invented yet.

1. Accessibility

This should be an obvious and easily understood requirement. But it’s worth explaining and underlining. Disabled people need social media Interfaces that people with any kind of disability can use with relative ease.

For people with physical disabilities, including those that change or limit fine motor functions and general stamina, this includes full access to all features, with fewer clicks, minimal typing required, and usable with a variety of input devices other than standard the mouse and keyboard.

For people with sensory disabilities, like visual, hearing, and speech impairments, accessibility also means simple site layouts with less clutter, and strong and easily accessed tools for rendering content in alternative formats like audio for text, text for voice, and text descriptions for all graphics and video.

Social media platforms should also take into account cognitive and learning disabilities. Simplicity and design elegance are good for all users, but essential for people with learning disabilities, cognitive impairments, and other neurological conditions. To be truly accessible, platforms like Twitter should always strike a careful balance between offering lots of choices and sophisticated content, and overwhelming users with cool features that are too hard to learn and adapt..

2. Community

At their best, social media platforms can be places where people with disabilities can readily find information and other like-minded disabled people, unfettered by geography or the need for physical exertion to find them.

But simply exposing people with disabilities to ideas and potential friends isn’t enough. What disabled people need most is credible information, not breathlessly-delivered rumors and conspiracy theories. And they crave disability communities actual disabled people can relate to and comfortably join.

Disabled people also want to meet other disabled people, not just well-meaning but sometimes misguided non-disabled allies. This is part of a long-term trend in recent decades where people with disabilities have increasingly looked to and relied on each other, rather than just family non-disabled disability professionals. Online disability culture has accelerated this trend. Fostering true disabled peer communities of substantial size and richness is one of the greatest achievements of the social media revolution.

Disabled people on social media also look for topical and emotional variety. They want a robust mix of reliable information, positive encouragement, strong advocacy, personal support and validation – but also honest, unflinching exploration of mistreatment, exclusion, and all forms of ableism. Too much “positivity” can indeed be “toxic.” Relentless cheerleading and celebration of disabled high achievers can feel deceptive, privileged, and even discouraging. At the same time, even the harshest disabled critics and fiercest advocates need periodic doses of hope and optimism. Sometimes it helps for disability social media to generate that deliberately.

3. Emotional safety

This should also go without saying, but bears repeating. Disabled people want social media to be as free as possible from abuse and bullying.

Most disabled people already encounter more than enough ableism in “real life.” This includes includes everything from schoolyard bullying of disabled children, to workplace discrimination of disabled adults, to the kind of physical and emotional abuse that’s always a risk for people who need everyday personal care.

On top of this, the worst of online ableism can include,, but is not limited to, awkwardly taboo and more deeply offensive terminology, as well as disability-related personal attacks and insults directed at disability communities, and at specific individuals. This is one of the most immediate concerns about the new Twitter. Free speech environments with little or no moderation can easily devolve into places where few disabled people will want to spend time. Disabled people value free speech and diverse opinions as much as anyone else. But most also value atmospheres in which both overt and subtle forms of ableist pestering and bullying are at the very least consistently discouraged rather than defended.

Of course, there is also a difficult gray area between offensive, harmful dialog, and sincere, well-intentioned – but also wrongheaded, annoying and wearying – disagreement or advice. Most disabled people want to hear contrary opinions. And it can be valuable to know what non-disabled people are really thinking, underneath politie euphemisms.

But some questions and ideas about disability are more than just irritating. For example, asking or demanding a disabled person online to explain every detail of their disability can read more like aggression or intimidation than as a request for enlightenment. And repeatedly suggesting that disabled people are better off dead, or that society is better off with fewer disabled people, has little value in spurring debate or diversity of opinion. They read as existential threats and create lasting emotional wounds.

4. Emotional sustainability

Disabled people online want to be challenged, stimulated, and engaged. But on some platforms they often find themselves bogged down by a flood of pestering and annoyances. This includes demands for unpaid emotional labor – like being asked over and over again, every day, to “educate” others for free on disability issues – or being exposed to hundreds of other people’s pain, then criticized for not consistently responding in just the right way.

Persistent questions about disability basics, and rehashed ableist arguments can also cause widespread burnout in online disability communities. For instance, it’s exhausting to be constantly challenged by contrarians and pot-stirrers to prove your own disability, or the existence and importance of ableism. And while advice is usually offered with good intentions, it can be exhausting to be repeatedly lectured by non-disabled people about how they think disabled people should handle disability discrimination, inaccessibility, bureaucratic problems, and everyday encounters with ableism.

Minimizing these many points of friction in online communities, while not micromanaging dialog or “tone policing” disability discourse is one of the most difficult but important challenges for any social media platform. Disability discourse online should be rich, lively, and inclusive, but also just plain pleasant enough to keep disabled people engaged and energized.

5. Visibility

One of the best things about Twitter has been that disabled people were able to meet, share, vent, and organize as distinct communities, but in plain sight of influential people outside the disability community. Disabled people crave a degree of privacy and kinship exclusively among disabled people. But at the same time they don’t want to be sequestered away where nobody else knows what they are thinking, doing, and working for.

Disabled people need social media platforms that expose politicians, government officials, management in business and non-profit sectors, academics, policymakers, and journalists to disability culture and priorities. Disabled people also want platforms that amplify their individual work beyond the disability community, and effectively boost their creative, business, and career opportunities.

Exactly how to deliver all of these qualities isn’t obvious. Twitter never completely delivered them. But it’s a challenge open to both Twitter under its new ownership, all other existing social media platforms, and anyone else with the ambition to start from scratch.

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