  User-generated content plays a key role in social networking, allowing a more
active participation, socialisation, and collaboration among users. In
particular, media content has been gaining a lot of ground, allowing users to
express themselves through different types of formats such as images, GIFs and
videos. The majority of this growing type of online content remains
inaccessible to a part of the population, despite available tools to mitigate
this source of exclusion. We sought to understand how people are perceiving
these online contents in their networks and how to support tools are being
used. To do so, we performed an online survey of 258 social network users and a
follow-up interview conducted with 20 of them - 7 of them self-reporting blind
and 13 sighted users without a disability. Results show how the different
approaches being employed by major platforms are still not sufficient to
properly address this issue. Our findings reveal that mainstream users are not
aware of the possibility and the benefits of adopting accessible practices.
From the general perspectives of end-users experiencing accessible practices,
concerning barriers encountered, and motivational factors, we also discuss
further approaches to create more user engagement and awareness.
