Closed Caption Subtitles Coming To Instagram Stories Soon

Credit: Alamy

Instagram is allegedly testing a closed captions (CC) sticker option in their app that generates automated captions for users to put on their stories.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra demonstrated how the option works in a video tweet on 10 March 2021. From what we observed in the video, Instagram’s closed captions have yet to be perfected, as it displayed “find” when Navarra mentioned “finally.” That aside, Instagram’s transcription software performed well. The transcription process only took a few seconds to generate CCs that appear with the right word simultaneously.

Andrew Hutchinson of SocialMediaToday reported that some Instagram users were able to access the option in their Instagram app. However, an “Internal only” error message was displayed when they were about to post their stories with CCs on. Instagram has since confirmed that the feature has yet to be available to the public.

Although Instagram did not give a definite date when the feature will be live, the incident could mean that CCs for stories could be released anytime soon. It is also unknown if Instagram will allow users to edit the CCs in their stories should the CCs contain errors.

IGTV was the first in Instagram to have closed captions in it Credit: Instagram

It should be remembered that Instagram had previously worked on automated CCs for IGTV back in September 2020.

Instagram’s CC option helps content creators make their content more accessible for a larger audience; it helps those who have hearing difficulties and users who want to watch others’ stories without audio. It is not yet clear if Instagram will add auto-translation in the CC sticker’s programming to assist people who speak in different languages.

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Written by John Paul Joaquin