Social-Media
YouTube is putting an end to its collective caption feature, and deaf developers are not pleased about it.
YouTube expects to discontinue its community captioning service, which required users to add subtitles to videos because it was rarely used and had spam / abuse issues, the company reported. It says it removes the captions and will rely on other developer tools. The feature will be removed as of September 28. You can also use your own captions, automated captions, and third-party software and services, YouTube said in an update to its support website.
Yet deaf and hard-of-hearing developers argue that eliminating the collective caption feature would stifle usability, and they want the organization to seek to address problems with optional captioning rather than do away with them altogether. Deaf YouTuber Rikki Poynter said on her channel in May that group captions were a accessibility opportunity that not only encouraged deaf and hard-to-hear users to view videos with captions, but also encouraged producers who could not afford to invest financially in captions.
She tweeted Thursday that she was unhappy with the ruling on YouTube:
Unfortunately, if they didn’t listen to me when we had our meeting, and didn’t listen to everyone telling them off in the comments months ago, I don’t think they’ll listen now. https://t.co/sn6DzeXn0V
— Rikki Poynter
