Bridging the Gap Between the Hearing & Deaf Worlds
There seems to be a worrying and dangerous trend where large brands are censoring potential profanity and swear words in auto-captions. They claim that it is to avoid mistakes, but still, this is not a good idea.
This is following the recent news that YouTube has decided to censor potential profanity in their auto-captions just in case they pop up as mistakes. But this goes against the whole concept of having captions/subtitles in the first.
When on a video call, and if available, I tend to take advantage of the automatic subtitles to help get through the call, and most deaf people would do the same.
But automatic subtitles are not perfect. They’re not terrible, but they’re not perfect. However, there are steps everyone can take to make it as accurate as possible and make it easier for the technology to pick up the words.
There seems to be an ongoing trend from video creators and consumers in that closed captions on YouTube are not accurate, so it’s not worth worrying about. What?!? Why do you think it’s not accurate? The responsibility of accurate video captions relies on you as the creator, not the technology that is creation auto-captions (aka CRAPtions). Not only should all video creators take closed captions seriously, but if you are relying on some kind of artificial intelligence and machine learning to do the work for you, it will never be accurate. So take ownership of your content and make it accurate. Learn why technology are not responsible for caption accuracy After several years hiatus, I have gone back to the cinema to watch the new Star Wars movie, which also happens to be the first time ever I watched a movie with captions. This post is not a review of the movie nor will there be any spoilers. It’s just a personal story of how it went for me and what could be done to make the cinema experience even more accessible for more people. Click here to learn more about my first captioned cinema experience here You are probably aware of the words ‘captions’ and ‘subtitles’ and at first glance, they may appear to be identical. But they’re not. So what are the differences between the captions and subtitles? And did you even know that there are differences? You might find it hard to believe that auto-captions are bad for SEO. But if you think about it’s low-quality content; something which YouTube and Google does not like. Yet, from my own experience and research, many people still resort to using auto-captions (which is often labelled as ‘craption’) for their YouTube videos. We take […] Welcome to The Hear Me Out! [CC] Podcast, an audio show (with transcripts included) where we listen to stories from fascinating individuals in and around the d/Deaf community and from your host, yours truly, Ahmed Khalifa. In this episode, I got chatting with Henry Warren who is running a campaign called ‘Turn on the Subtitles’ where he is encouraging broadcasters and technology platforms to turn on the subtitles as research has shown that it can help improve children’s literacy rate. Listen to podcast or read transcript of interview with Henry Warren After recently experiencing of a listening to a podcast by a well-known person, and from years of similar experiences from a number of podcasts and videos, it’s time to call it out if you are not providing transcripts or captions to your content. Since I have less patience about bad quality content and experience, this is an opportunity for me to call it out on people who don’t make their content accessible. But it’s not just about making it accessible because you feel like “you have to”, but you will get a lot of benefits out of it too. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript of episode 20 here In episode 13, amidst the hype around the Avengers: Endgame movie, I open up with personal story about how The Avengers has played a part in triggering my emotions and unleashed my deaf advocacy. Even though everyone is able to enjoy “the best movie ever”, I cannot experience the same joy, which was difficult to accept. But it did not mean that I just wanted to sit around and accept it.Technology is not responsible for the accuracy of automatic captions. You are!
My first captioned movie experience as a deaf/hard of hearing cinema customer
Open/closed captions vs subtitles: What are the differences & when to use them
Why auto-captions (aka ‘Craption’) are bad for SEO?
‘Let’s use subtitles to improve children’s literacy rate’ with Henry Warren from ‘Turn on the Subtitles’
If you don’t provide transcripts & captions for your Content,you’re missing out
How the ‘Avengers’ movies triggered my emotions & deaf advocacy
