Social Media and Disability

This chapter explores the relationship between social media and disability—as Facebook would say of the relationship “it’s complicated.” On the one hand, social media has provided many people with disabilities with an avenue for social interaction and participation, commerce and political activism that would be hard or even impossible without these platforms. However, alongside this, they also have the potential to place yet another layer of exclusion and disadvantage over people’s lives as a result of threats to their privacy and also, through a lack of accessibility, to exclude them from both those potential positive avenues and broader participation in society.