Pornhub adds closed captions for viewers with hearing loss

Pornhub may always have one eye on an eye-catching publicity stunt, but it is at least trying to bring adult content to those with accessibility issues. From today, the site is adding closed captions to a section of its content library, geared towards those with hearing loss. Over 1,000 clips across a number of genres will offer "descriptive and interpretative text" for those who "are not able to hear the video's original audio."

Pornhub says that the features will help viewers distinguish which person is speaking at any one time, and identify changes in emotion. In addition, non-dialog sounds that are relevant to the storyline or scene will be highlighted. And while we can all joke that it'd be possible to imagine our own "yeah baby, harder" etc, the truth is that close to 40 million Americans have some form of hearing loss. The videos have been hand-captioned, rather than using an algorithmic system similar to that of other major video platforms.

The company says that this is the other half of its accessibility push, having already launched videos with audio descriptions for people with sight loss. We checked to see if anyone had bothered with the clips, and to our surprise, several of them around a million views. Clearly, there's a market and a need for such an offering, so the outfit deserves some praise for even trying. Just not for the other parts of its business.