Warning: for mature audiences only.
I just found the "F" word in an auto-generated caption for a Red Cross YouTube video, a little promotional sketch featuring a 10-year-old girl and entitled "What the heck are they doing with my money?" Unfortunately, the Red Cross is one of the many online organizations that is still in a state of denial about their need to make their videos accessible to the deaf. If they ever decide to act, though, they could begin by weeding out the obscene and suggestive words in the gobbledy-gook that they're already serving up on the cheap thanks to Google's auto-captioning.
Anyway, if you're in the mood to laugh -- and complain -- about the current lousy state of affairs as regards online closed captioning, visit my auto-generated captioning archive at
www.ottocapshuns.com
I've also found the "S" word and the anatomical "D" word in the Red Cross's auto-generated captioning -- of which I informed the organization three days ago, but they don't seem to be in a particular hurry to remove these dirty words, as the captions in question are still rearing their ugly heads for those who dare to click the "cc" icon.
Mind you, I'm a closed captioner and I'm neither deaf nor hard-of-hearing. That said, I am pretty sure that I would take this situation personally if I were. It would seem to me, I think, like the Red Cross really considered me to be "chopped liver" -- especially in light of their facade of feel-good inclusiveness. (The Red Cross is far from being alone with this seemingly cavalier indifference to the deaf community's needs. The Sierra Club has a whole video about inclusiveness -- which, ironically, is not intelligibly closed captioned, leading one to assume that the Sierra Club brand of inclusiveness simply does not include the deaf community.)
Maybe it's just me. But if the lack of decent online closed captioning bothers you even a little bit, please do me a favor and complain using the YouTube comment forms for the hideously mis-captioned videos that you see on my site. These hideous captions bother me because the videos themselves are so slick -- and yet these organizations choose to go "bargain basement" for the captions (not even bargain basement but basically rooting through a dumpster for freebies!) -- and even then they don't bother to scan their auto-generated captions for embarrassing errors. So what if the F word pops up from time to time? it's not THEIR kids who are going to be reading it.
What? I'm just sayin'....
Something's wrong with this picture. We've got a zeitgeist problem here, folks. So please help me change it (the zeitgeist, that is).
(You know what? I've just thought about it: and it's NOT just me, after all. So there. Humph!)
I just found the "F" word in an auto-generated caption for a Red Cross YouTube video, a little promotional sketch featuring a 10-year-old girl and entitled "What the heck are they doing with my money?" Unfortunately, the Red Cross is one of the many online organizations that is still in a state of denial about their need to make their videos accessible to the deaf. If they ever decide to act, though, they could begin by weeding out the obscene and suggestive words in the gobbledy-gook that they're already serving up on the cheap thanks to Google's auto-captioning.
Anyway, if you're in the mood to laugh -- and complain -- about the current lousy state of affairs as regards online closed captioning, visit my auto-generated captioning archive at
www.ottocapshuns.com
I've also found the "S" word and the anatomical "D" word in the Red Cross's auto-generated captioning -- of which I informed the organization three days ago, but they don't seem to be in a particular hurry to remove these dirty words, as the captions in question are still rearing their ugly heads for those who dare to click the "cc" icon.
Mind you, I'm a closed captioner and I'm neither deaf nor hard-of-hearing. That said, I am pretty sure that I would take this situation personally if I were. It would seem to me, I think, like the Red Cross really considered me to be "chopped liver" -- especially in light of their facade of feel-good inclusiveness. (The Red Cross is far from being alone with this seemingly cavalier indifference to the deaf community's needs. The Sierra Club has a whole video about inclusiveness -- which, ironically, is not intelligibly closed captioned, leading one to assume that the Sierra Club brand of inclusiveness simply does not include the deaf community.)
Maybe it's just me. But if the lack of decent online closed captioning bothers you even a little bit, please do me a favor and complain using the YouTube comment forms for the hideously mis-captioned videos that you see on my site. These hideous captions bother me because the videos themselves are so slick -- and yet these organizations choose to go "bargain basement" for the captions (not even bargain basement but basically rooting through a dumpster for freebies!) -- and even then they don't bother to scan their auto-generated captions for embarrassing errors. So what if the F word pops up from time to time? it's not THEIR kids who are going to be reading it.
What? I'm just sayin'....
Something's wrong with this picture. We've got a zeitgeist problem here, folks. So please help me change it (the zeitgeist, that is).
(You know what? I've just thought about it: and it's NOT just me, after all. So there. Humph!)
