Video

Google’s YouTube is the global giant of online video, with over 72 hours of video being uploaded to the platform every minute. But with popularity comes responsibility. While YouTube in many ways could be seen as a pioneer of Deaf access online, the premature release of its auto-captioning feature could be doing more harm than good.

The mantra “poor quality captions are as good as no captions at all” will be familiar to many of us within the Deaf and hearing loss advocacy sector. It’s a common catch-cry when dealing with traditional broadcasters.

In looking into the accessibility of DVDs of programs previously broadcast, it is noteworthy that audio description is not yet broadcast on television as part of a full time service, but captioning has been mandatory under the Broadcasting Services Act for many years. With this in mind, it is perhaps not surprising that the level of audio description on SBS titles is very low at 1%.