Facebook is bringing closed captions to Facebook Live broadcasts to make them more accessible to all.
As Supratik Lahiri, Product Manager, and Jeffrey Wieland, Director of Accessibility at Facebook clearly put it, “making Facebook accessible to everyone is a key part of building global community.” And that is exactly what the company is aiming at with the launch of closed captions on Facebook Live, helping those who are deaf or hard of hearing to experience live videos.
Users with their captioning settings turned on, will now automatically start seeing closed captions in their Live broadcasts – when they’re available that is.
Lahiri and Wieland, announcing closed captions on Facebook Live, also explained that
[quote]Over the past year, daily watch time for Facebook Live broadcasts has grown by more than 4x, and 1 in 5 Facebook videos is a Live broadcast.[/quote]
So it’s only natural that Facebook wants to bring more and more users into the mix, allowing them to enjoy and participate in “the exciting moments that unfold on Live.” They also note that it’s already possible to add captions to videos that are not live – when uploading them to a Facebook Page. However creators can also choose to generate captions automatically with Facebook‘s speech recognition service.
If you want to find out more about adding closed captions to your Live broadcasts, click here. If you want to find out more about Facebook’s accessibility features and settings, click here.
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