4 ms·

YouTube to end community captions feature and deaf creators aren’t happy

44 points by vermontdevil 6y ago

Fej 6y ago
It looks like it will still be possible, but only through a paid third-party service. I suppose Google thinks auto-captions are enough to satisfy the ADA. We'll see.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  They're not. You should see how the auto-captions work for the Scottish guy who does 1Bike1World.
samstave 6y ago
Youtube seems to be being run by idiots? All their decisions I have been seeing over the last ~year all appear to me to be idiotic. But I dont know their business - anyone care to elucidate?
- evv 6y ago
  YouTube crushed their competition years ago. Of course the product is going to shit- there is no motivation to improve.
  - edjrage 6y ago
    I get the no improvement part, but why make it worse by removing stable, useful features? How much maintenance does it need? What are they gaining from this?
    - compiler-guy 6y ago
      Google gains a lot less span and abuse on its system by doing this. My preferred solution would be better filtering and abuse handling, but at the moment this feature is a very mixed bag at best.
    - Glant 6y ago
      From the YouTube help page "This feature was rarely used and had problems with spam/abuse so we’re removing them to focus on other creator tools. You can still use your own captions, automatic captions, and third-party tools and services." That seems fair enough to me. Creators can still add captions, it's just viewers that can't add them without a 3rd party service.
    - R0b0t1 6y ago
      If you are a monopoly you have little to no signal you have done a bad thing. It's not that they have no incentive to improve, it's that they have no understanding of what is or isn't improvement. Some people are arguing about a reduction in spam or abuse, but it might also be a liability issue (but I don't know how or why).
Zenst 6y ago
Bad move as some channels love that their content gets translations into other languages as helps them and they can't afford to pay for that and it's fans/supporters/people learning that create that. That's all going to go. What they should and hopefully will still do is - allow it to happen still, but give control to the content creator to authorise it and only authorised is public. That way you get the best of it all. Then you would have a way to acknowledge any abuse/spam and get on that instead of liberally tarnishing all community captioners as spammy evil people who should be stopped as that is how they are doing it. Playing the, we're doing this as bad things happen focus and utterly and completely ignoring every positive good aspect of this. A pattern many a company/government uses and still don't make it right. This approach is what I call "Think of the children 2.0", same thing in effect, just more meanutiatered and subtle approach and yet still heavy on the blinkers.
macintux 6y ago
Ongoing discussion here since last night: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24004573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24004573
EricE 6y ago
Heh - so much for diversity and support of minority communities despite all of Google's virtue signaling around how much they value and support them.
R0b0t1 6y ago
I remember reading some Ivy put up a bunch of course material for free and was sued under the ADA so they took it down. This article made me think of that. To what extent are YouTube or content creators responsible for producing accessible material?

44 points by vermontdevil 6y ago

Fej 6y ago

It looks like it will still be possible, but only through a paid third-party service. I suppose Google thinks auto-captions are enough to satisfy the ADA. We'll see.

jschwartzi 6y ago
They're not. You should see how the auto-captions work for the Scottish guy who does 1Bike1World.

samstave 6y ago

Youtube seems to be being run by idiots? All their decisions I have been seeing over the last ~year all appear to me to be idiotic. But I dont know their business - anyone care to elucidate?

evv 6y ago
YouTube crushed their competition years ago. Of course the product is going to shit- there is no motivation to improve.
- edjrage 6y ago
  I get the no improvement part, but why make it worse by removing stable, useful features? How much maintenance does it need? What are they gaining from this?
  - compiler-guy 6y ago
    Google gains a lot less span and abuse on its system by doing this. My preferred solution would be better filtering and abuse handling, but at the moment this feature is a very mixed bag at best.
  - Glant 6y ago
    From the YouTube help page "This feature was rarely used and had problems with spam/abuse so we’re removing them to focus on other creator tools. You can still use your own captions, automatic captions, and third-party tools and services." That seems fair enough to me. Creators can still add captions, it's just viewers that can't add them without a 3rd party service.
  - R0b0t1 6y ago
    If you are a monopoly you have little to no signal you have done a bad thing. It's not that they have no incentive to improve, it's that they have no understanding of what is or isn't improvement. Some people are arguing about a reduction in spam or abuse, but it might also be a liability issue (but I don't know how or why).

Zenst 6y ago

Bad move as some channels love that their content gets translations into other languages as helps them and they can't afford to pay for that and it's fans/supporters/people learning that create that. That's all going to go. What they should and hopefully will still do is - allow it to happen still, but give control to the content creator to authorise it and only authorised is public. That way you get the best of it all. Then you would have a way to acknowledge any abuse/spam and get on that instead of liberally tarnishing all community captioners as spammy evil people who should be stopped as that is how they are doing it. Playing the, we're doing this as bad things happen focus and utterly and completely ignoring every positive good aspect of this. A pattern many a company/government uses and still don't make it right. This approach is what I call "Think of the children 2.0", same thing in effect, just more meanutiatered and subtle approach and yet still heavy on the blinkers.

macintux 6y ago

Ongoing discussion here since last night: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24004573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24004573

EricE 6y ago

Heh - so much for diversity and support of minority communities despite all of Google's virtue signaling around how much they value and support them.

R0b0t1 6y ago

I remember reading some Ivy put up a bunch of course material for free and was sued under the ADA so they took it down. This article made me think of that. To what extent are YouTube or content creators responsible for producing accessible material?