Facebook Adding Captioning Capability to Live Videos

June 2017 -  Facebook reports that in 2017 users are currently watching four times more live video content than they did in 2016, and 20 percent of videos uploaded to Facebook are aired live.  As user-generated video content is increasingly available to the public, Facebook is working to increase accessibility with closed captioning on live videos.  This feature will benefit people who need or use closed captions to access the content, such as people who experience hearing impairments or English language learners. Facebook’s captioning on some live broadcasts will be accomplished with a Live Application Programing Interface (Live API).  Publishers with broadcasting equipment, Live API, a third party caption provider or closed captioning software will be able to translate the video’s audio into text.  Captioning video in real time can be difficult.  However, with one in five Facebook videos streamed live, this is an industry step forward for increasing accessibility.  If publishers use closed captions and enable the feature on their videos, Facebook users who already have closed captions turned on will automatically see the text.  Source: Hillary Grigonis, Digital Trends