<story><title>YouTube is shutting down crowdsourced captions</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/youtube-celebrates-deaf-awareness-week-by-killing-crowd-sourced-captions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deadbunny</author><text>Or is that that their AI&amp;#x2F;ML is good enough that they don&amp;#x27;t need to crowd source captioning now?</text></item><item><author>ocdtrekkie</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s surprising because Google loves to use handicapped and disabled users as example cases of how important their technologies are. One of the most prominent early videos for the self-driving car project &lt;i&gt;hinged&lt;/i&gt; on the idea that it would let a blind person go to a drive-thru at a restaurant.&lt;p&gt;When they turn around and cut off a surely much less cost-heavy accessibility feature seemingly at random, to many users complaint, it is, in fact, surprising.&lt;p&gt;As far as recourse, it&amp;#x27;d be a bit of a stretch to use the ADA here, but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be totally surprised if someone tried a lawsuit in this instance: Google is cutting off handicapped users for almost no real cost to themselves.</text></item><item><author>ancarda</author><text>Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s really shitty behavior, but are you surprised? YouTube is owned by Google, a company that routinely culls features or products not used by at-least a billion people a day.&lt;p&gt;They aren&amp;#x27;t going to change their behavior - this is how Google rolls and it works for Google. They only want popular, cool stuff - and catering to the disabled and less fortunate isn&amp;#x27;t popular or cool.&lt;p&gt;I doubt much can be done about this... Try to avoid their services, when possible? Don&amp;#x27;t give them money? Encourage others to avoid Google?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s frustrating having no recourse.</text></item><item><author>ocdtrekkie</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s incredibly insane here, is that &amp;quot;low usage&amp;quot; is the excuse being used to terminate an accessibility feature. Accessibility features will &lt;i&gt;always be low usage&lt;/i&gt;, but it&amp;#x27;s still important to provide them.&lt;p&gt;This is kinda like a restaurant removing their handicapped ramp because it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;not used often&amp;quot;. Of course, that&amp;#x27;d be illegal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zimpenfish</author><text>Based on what I&amp;#x27;ve seen, it can&amp;#x27;t even cope with simple plain English - in a video I watched earlier, in just the first 90 seconds, &amp;quot;This subject has&amp;quot; -&amp;gt; &amp;quot;If his subject has&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;A weapon that was&amp;quot; -&amp;gt; &amp;quot;Her weapon fat was&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;spherical shape&amp;quot; -&amp;gt; &amp;quot;severe achill shape&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>YouTube is shutting down crowdsourced captions</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/youtube-celebrates-deaf-awareness-week-by-killing-crowd-sourced-captions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deadbunny</author><text>Or is that that their AI&amp;#x2F;ML is good enough that they don&amp;#x27;t need to crowd source captioning now?</text></item><item><author>ocdtrekkie</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s surprising because Google loves to use handicapped and disabled users as example cases of how important their technologies are. One of the most prominent early videos for the self-driving car project &lt;i&gt;hinged&lt;/i&gt; on the idea that it would let a blind person go to a drive-thru at a restaurant.&lt;p&gt;When they turn around and cut off a surely much less cost-heavy accessibility feature seemingly at random, to many users complaint, it is, in fact, surprising.&lt;p&gt;As far as recourse, it&amp;#x27;d be a bit of a stretch to use the ADA here, but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be totally surprised if someone tried a lawsuit in this instance: Google is cutting off handicapped users for almost no real cost to themselves.</text></item><item><author>ancarda</author><text>Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s really shitty behavior, but are you surprised? YouTube is owned by Google, a company that routinely culls features or products not used by at-least a billion people a day.&lt;p&gt;They aren&amp;#x27;t going to change their behavior - this is how Google rolls and it works for Google. They only want popular, cool stuff - and catering to the disabled and less fortunate isn&amp;#x27;t popular or cool.&lt;p&gt;I doubt much can be done about this... Try to avoid their services, when possible? Don&amp;#x27;t give them money? Encourage others to avoid Google?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s frustrating having no recourse.</text></item><item><author>ocdtrekkie</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s incredibly insane here, is that &amp;quot;low usage&amp;quot; is the excuse being used to terminate an accessibility feature. Accessibility features will &lt;i&gt;always be low usage&lt;/i&gt;, but it&amp;#x27;s still important to provide them.&lt;p&gt;This is kinda like a restaurant removing their handicapped ramp because it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;not used often&amp;quot;. Of course, that&amp;#x27;d be illegal.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tmpz22</author><text>No way it handles all languages with the same effectiveness.</text></comment>