TikTok now lets viewers enable, disable closed captions

The feature was initially introduced in 2021 but had a few shortcomings such as requiring creators to enable auto-generated captions on their videos before posting. Once posted, the creator couldn’t edit the post and add the captions, having to now delete the post and post it again.

The social app is also introducing a translation tool so that viewers can translate captions, descriptions and stickers. Previously, users were compelled to outsource and translate each phrase and piece together the message of each video.

TikTok thinks that “through these efforts, global content will become more accessible regardless of the language(s) you speak and where you are in the world”.

Auto-captions and translations will be available initially in English, Portuguese, German, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Turkish, but the company intends to expand to include more languages.