I find that it's helpful to explain what alt text is, and how it provides accessibility and inclusion. There are a lot of people who still don't quite understand that blind people are able to interact with digital content and social media. Use it as a teachable moment.
From an accessibility professional (me): Alt text is an attribute of an image, allowing blind folks who use a screen reader, the ability to have an equivalent experience of an image, through a text based description. Alt text should explain the image in a way that anyone could visualize it.
Although Bluesky allows sighted users to view the alt text, this is not normal. All digital images should have alt text, and if they do, can be read by a screen reader, which is software that blind and sometimes low vision folks use to interact with digital content like websites, email, PDFs, etc.
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