Twitter Expands Voice Tweets to More Users on iOS, Will be Rolling Out Transcriptions Soon

Twitter is expanding its voice tweets feature to more users on iOS. Introduced in June, this feature allows users to tweet using their voice through a new ‘wavelength' icon. Twitter is also planning on adding transcriptions for audio and video to make them more accessible. The micro-blogging platform had received criticism for not factoring accessibility back when it had started testing voice tweets a few months ago. Twitter said that it would begin rolling out voice tweets for Android and Web in 2021.

Twitter announced that it would be rolling out voice tweets to more iOS users, so that it could continue to learn how people use audio. The voice tweet feature captures up to 140 seconds of audio in a single tweet, but has so far only been made available to a limited number of users. Twitter also said that it was currently working on bringing voice tweets to Android and Web in 2021.

Twitter had received backlash for not factoring accessibility after it had introduced voice tweets in June. The company said in a tweet today that it had taken the feedback seriously and was working on making transcriptions available, in order to make voice tweets more accessible. The social media giant said that transcriptions for audio and video were part of its larger plan to make Twitter accessible for everyone across all features, existing and new.

After being criticised for not being accessible enough, Twitter had, earlier this month, announced two new teams it was building to focus on accessibility. The Accessibility Center for Excellence will set goals and drive progress to help make aspects of Twitter more accessible. The Experience Accessibility Team, meanwhile, will focus on new and existing features and products on Twitter, aiming to provide greater accessibility on the micro-blogging platform.

Twitter is also going to start testing voice DMs soon.

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