Friendsourcing

A practice where people with disabilities turn to friends, family members, or social network contacts to obtain assistance with accessibility-related tasks, such as describing images, identifying objects, or verifying visual information. Unlike crowdsourcing from strangers, friendsourcing leverages existing social relationships, which can improve the quality and trustworthiness of responses and eliminate financial costs. However, friendsourcing carries significant social costs: it can make users feel dependent, vulnerable, or burdensome, and it places the work of accessibility onto disabled individuals and their personal networks rather than on platforms and content creators. Research shows that visually impaired social media users frequently rely on friendsourcing to interpret inaccessible visual content.