Liam O’Dell: Why I co-created a Twitter bot for BSL interpreter requests

Not all social media bots are bad. For those of you who – like me – are avid Twitter users,  you’ll have probably used one already courtesy of @HeadlinerClip. In the absence of a properly captioned video, the bot shares a copy with automatically generated captions. Granted, auto-captions are never a replacement for top quality manual captions, but it’s a fine example of some computer code making the internet a bit more accessible for us Deaf folks.

Little did I know that on Thursday last week, I’d play a part in creating a new Twitter bot which hopes to be just as helpful. Operating under the handle of @BSLRequestBot, the profile will retweet any request for a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter – or indeed, any BSL professional – to its followers, provided it has the hashtag #BSLRequest or #BSLRequests. You can also mention it under a tweet with the word ‘RT’ should these hashtags be missing from the original tweet.

Hi! I'm a bot that gathers requests for BSL interpreters in one place.

If you're looking for an interpreter, include #BSLRequest in your post and I'll retweet it.

If you see a request without the hashtag, you can reply to their tweet with "@BSLRequestBot RT" and I'll retweet it

— BSL Request Bot (@BSLRequestBot) July 15, 2022

At this point, I must make it absolutely clear that I wasn’t behind the code which gets the bot working – I am completely hopeless in that area. Instead, most of the credit for this little project must go to Matt Eason, who already has some other accessibility bots to his name.

And so while I can’t talk about the technical wizardry required to get this thing up and running, I can explain my reasoning behind this new bot, and why I felt it was necessary to introduce it to the Twitterverse, as it were.

Primarily, it comes down to tweets with last-minute requests for BSL interpreters appearing on my Twitter feed far more regularly in recent years. As one person has already pointed out to me, quick turnarounds are far from ideal, but as another noted in response, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has unfortunately created a situation whereby communication support becomes unavailable at short notice. One aim of the bot is to speed up this process, when individual Twitter users previously had to plead with their followers to share a request far and wide to get more attention.

It serves multiple audiences, too. Both Deaf and hearing people in need of a BSL interpreter can find one more easily, and freelance professionals have a new account to follow which shares work opportunities. Though of course, as some people have noted, there is still the requirement for each party to exercise due diligence. Deaf and hearing clients should check an interpreter is registered with an organisation such as the NRCPD, for example, and interpreters should do the same for potential clients.

We haven’t created an ‘agency’ here, merely a bot to congregate what were otherwise scattered requests for communication support into one place. Deaf and hearing people get the access they need sooner, and BSL interpreters can find more work.

That said, we’re still in the early days with this project, and there will no doubt be code to tweak and updates to issue in time. A point has already been made about having the bot’s instructions translated into BSL, which I’m looking into at the moment.

In the meantime, Matt and I hope this bot is a force for good around accessibility, and the overwhelmingly positive response already has been incredible to witness. Feel free to give the bot a follow, and spread the word – we’re excited to see how this little project develops!

Photo: Matt Eason.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.