Dear YouTube and Google

and

Susan Wojcicki and Sundar Pichai:

We are petitioning for YouTube to continue their Community Contributions Feature which allows free and accessible translation services.

We are deeply bothered by YouTube’s decision to discontinue their Community Translation Services by September 28, 2020.

All makers and creators content, work and messages should be able to be enjoyed, heard, and understood in other countries and in other languages and by all humans. 

Subtitles and closed captions open up all content to a larger audience, including deaf or hard of hearing viewers or those who speak languages besides the one spoken in the original video.

Translated subtitles can also be handy for viewers who are in a loud or noisy environment. Sometimes people cannot hear over all the commotion or maybe they do not have headphones.

Additionally many people access video content on their smartphones while they are en route to or at work. For discretion purposes, they prefer to watch YouTube videos in silent mode with their captions and subtitles on.

Businesses often loop YouTube Videos in silent mode with subtitles on large monitors accessible to their customers or the public. 

Instructional videos are often way more effective with subtitles.

On average, over two-thirds of a creator's audience watch time comes from outside of their home area.  This means that translated Youtube videos can really help substantially grow audiences.  Translations often are key to understanding, connection, and accessibility for various global communities. 

Community Contributions are submitted by volunteers invested in said content and their creators. Translations builds community investment and helps grow the community.

Volunteer Translation save creators money and time; freeing up these resources allowing for additional creativity and so the cycle continues.

Forcing creators and makers into paying for subscription Translation Services depletes creators esources and isolates creators from highly invested members of their community.

YouTube Automatic Translation Services are limited in their scope of available languages and have been traditionally lacking in their consistency and accuracy.

 

According to YouTube the service is under utilized with that less than 0.001% of the channels having published community Captions.

“0.2% is a significant amount of time at youtube's scale. If people watch one billion hours of video a day[1], then that's two million hours of community contributions watched a day which seems like a lot.Thanks!Evan

[1]: https://youtube.com/about/press/

 

Two million watched hours a day is a significant number and is worthy of accessible and accurate Translations. 

Turning off Community Contribution translation services will Irrevocably and negativly effect Global Communication, Connection, Accessibility, and Community for YouTube, YouTube Creators, and YouTubeViewers.

Because of all these impacts and more, we respectfully ask that YouTube indefinitely Continue their Community Contributions Feature which allows free and accessible translation services.

Thank you for your attention and support.

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