Is Ableism CAPtioned? (Why Not Adding Captions is Ableist)

When I say “people who need captions” I am referring to deaf people, hard of hearing people, people with auditory processing disorders, and/or anyone else that needs captions to fully understand.

Things in italics are my responses to people's excuses.

All questions in this article are rhetorical unless I state otherwise.

The following article was written with social media (like Tiktok and Instagram) in mind.

Captions are an example of what I mean when I say someone doesn’t need/have to have a/the conscious intention to be ableist. To cause harm.

If there is important information, not including (aka excluding) correct captions leaves out people who need captions. This potentially putting our lives at risk.

If the information presented is not life or death, if it’s more just entertainment, not having correct captions makes it so people who need captions cannot partake. Human beings get stressed and have bad days. People who need captions deserve to be able to enjoy videos just as much as people who don't need captions.

I understand someone could forget, not think about it, and/or even want to but not know how. It's important, though, once you're reminded, it’s brought to your attention, and/or you're taught that you apologize, take accountability, and do better going forward.

Unfortunately I’ve also seen some of these same people include captions on a video or two or even for a couple months consistently just to stop completely. This bothers me a lot because with captions I can finally understand. I believe I found a space where I'm safe. When the captions just stop I can no longer understand. And that makes me feel unsafe because if my understanding is no longer being taken into account and considered, who's to say anything about me is?

I particularly have an issue with people who outright refuse [to include captions]. People who ignore comments asking for captions (I know someone may not see every comment - which is why I personally comment on multiple of someone’s posts if I don’t get a response that day or by the time I go on social media the next morning), people who make excuses as to why they can’t (I’ve personally seen “it takes too much time” - I manually enter captions and it takes me 1 to 5 minutes max, “it costs too much money” - I understand there are options that cost money; there are also free versions. Manually type into a notes app or message to yourself and copy and paste. Boom. Free. (And perhaps other ways I cannot think of currently.), “I like to put other words on the screen” - label the captions as captions. Make the captions a different font and/or color than the other text, “I post casually” - honestly I don't even understand what this means. Adding captions is not formal, it's not not casual. You posting publicly on the internet at all means anyone (including someone who needs captions) could come across it and everyone deserves full access), and people who outright just say “no”.

I say "correct captions" because it’s also ableist (and exclusion) to not make sure your captions don’t have mistakes.

Great! You included captions. But if they're not correct, what good do they do? Whether one thing or every single word is wrong, people who need captions outright miss something. This is not okay.

Auto-generated captions are no better. Speaking about Tiktok because I personally haven't really seen auto captions on any other social media: the text is incredibly small, depending on the video they can be incredibly difficult to read, they don't show up until 10+ minutes after a video is posted, they disappear if I clear the display (so the username, caption, profile picture, like button, comment button, save button, share button, and sound/audio is not shown), they can say something fully incorrect, they can be missing a word(s), they sometimes just fully disappear during a video, and they can freeze while someone is speaking.

People who need captions deserve full access without "jumping through hoops" trying to figure out what you're saying. People who don't need captions most likely understand what you're verbally saying. We [people who need captions] don't and probably can't.