Twitter Announces New Features to Help Users Celebrate the Paralympic Games

With the Paralympics beginning this week, Twitter has announced a new set of features to help users engage with the event, and follow along with the latest updates.

First off, as has become customary for Twitter, the platform is adding a new hashflag for tweets that use the #Paralympics hashtag.

Twitter will also provide a series of custom emojis for specific sports, while the emojis it added for the Olympics, which unlock when people Tweet #Gold, #Silver or #Bronze, will also remain in effect for the event.

Users can also use their three-character country codes to activate flag emojis for each nation, providing another way to show support. 

Twitter will also maintain its #Tokyo2020 event display within Explore to highlight the latest Paralympic news and updates.

In addition to this, Twitter’s also looking to help amplify the #WeThe15 campaign, which aims to highlight the 1.2 billion people globally who live with a disability.

As per Twitter:

“People on Twitter can follow @WeThe15 and use related hashtags to listen and be part of conversations from and about 15% of people in the world have a disability. The #WeThe15 hashtag is available in 17 languages and advocates are also encouraged to update their Twitter profiles to show their support.”

Twitter users can add a WeThe15 frame to their Twitter profile image, add a purple heart to their display name or include​ #WeThe15 in their bio to show their support.

Despite various disruptions and impacts, the Olympics and Paralympics remain important events for athletes, and play a key role in securing funding, raising individual profiles and boosting awareness of various causes. The latter is especially important in the case of the Paralympic Games, and as such, it’s important that social platforms look to provide tools like these to help raise awareness of the event.