Seems Twitter knows a thing or two about stealth – Twitter has recently announced that all video uploads within Tweets will have, by default, auto captions enabled, providing additional ways for users to consume video content within its network.
Auto-Subs
As Twitter explains, from today onwards, all videos attached to Tweets will have captions automatically enabled. Captions will be enabled even for muted live-stream videos, both on iOS and Android. Desktop users have the option to toggle the option either on or off.
Twitter’s auto captions are currently available in 37 languages, and though translation is not yet available, the captions will appear in the language of the device that was used to upload the clip. A key downside is that Twitter’s auto captions are unable to be edited as of this moment, seeing as how both the required translation and editing tools are still in development .
The announcement marks Twitter’s latest advances in its accessibility features, which actually got a boost last year along with the announcement of two new internal teams who’ll be focusing on providing optimal utility for all users. The decision was born out of company criticisms towards launching audio Tweets without a captions option, making the platform recognize the need to allot more focus on this particular front. However, Twitter did mention auto-captions for voice Tweets last year, while standard captions are available for Spaces.
Auto captions in videos may be the biggest step thus far. And, as noticed by TechCrunch, it could be particularly valuable for Twitter’s new explore tab, which is currently in testing, presenting Tweets in a full screen, vertical-scrolling format, heavily akin to TikTok’s default content display format.
The benefit of having captions displayed in this kind of format is that it enables users to engage in more types of content. How? Simply because of the additional access provided; if you want to see new or simply back-view previously posted content, all you need is to scroll and click. Though the majority of Twitter’s regular feed is primarily text-focused, this updated format makes it more visually-aligned, with captions potentially playing a key role with regards to evolving engagement behaviors and trends.
The Wrap
It’s a good move overall on Twitter’s end, and one that’ll likely have a significant impact for many users. One additional key potential benefit of auto captions could be with respect to data categorization – Twitter would be able to use auto captions as a means to better understand and identify engagement behaviors, thus providing more insight into user interests.
As noted by Twitter, auto captions will appear even in muted videos on both iOS and Android, while you can also tap the ‘CC’ button on desktop to toggle the option on or off, ala-YouTube style.
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