Twitter rolls out its closed caption toggle on iOS and Android, tests new ways to start Spaces – TechCrunch

Twitter announced this week that it’s introducing a few new features for users. Most notably, the social media giant is rolling out its closed caption toggle to all users on iOS and Android. Twitter began testing the toggle in April and is now bringing it to all users on mobile. The CC button will appear in the top-right corner of a video that has captions available. You can then tap the button to turn captions on or off.

The official launch comes as the company rolled out auto-generated captions on videos last December to make videos more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Auto captions are available on web, iOS and Android in more than 30 languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Hindi and more.

The choice is now yours: the closed caption toggle is now available for everyone on iOS and Android!

Tap the “CC” button on videos with available captions to turn the captions off/on. https://t.co/GceKv68wvi

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) June 23, 2022

Twitter has also announced that it wants to make it easier for users to start a Space and is launching two experiments on iOS. The first experiment will allow iOS users to start a Space from the tweet composer. To do so, you can tap on the Spaces icon in the tweet composer to start a new space. The second experiment will let iOS users start a space from the retweet menu. When you start a Space from the retweet menu, it will skip the usual set up and immediately go live. The tweet will then automatically be pinned at the top of the Space.

In addition, Twitter also announced that it’s testing a new way for hosts and speakers to share tweets in a Space via the retweet menu.

we want to make starting a Space easier so we’re launching two experiments on iOS —start a Space from the Tweet composer and from the Retweet menu

in the Tweet composer, simply tap the Spaces icon on the bottom left to start a new Space 👇 pic.twitter.com/cQfFALeN0p

— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) June 22, 2022

These new features aren’t the only ones that Twitter announced this week, as Twitter has started testing “Notes,” a way to write and publish long-form content on the social media platform. A small group of writers in the United States, Canada, Ghana and the United Kingdom now have access to Notes as part of the initial testing phase.

Twitter says Notes can be read on and off Twitter by people in most countries. Users who are part of the testing phase will get access to a new “Write” tab, which is where they can write and access all of their Notes. These users will also have a new “Notes” tab in their profile that holds their published work to make it easy for their followers to find their long-form content.

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