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Facebook videos about to get less office-friendly
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Videos have auto-played silently on Facebook for some time, but now the social media giant will be enabling sound on your news feed by default. (Shutterstock/Mygate)
Facebook has announced the newest feature to pimp your news feed, which some may find annoying -- videos will auto-play with sound.
Videos have auto-played silently on Facebook for some time, but now the social media giant will enable sound on your news feed by default. If your phone is on silent, though, Facebook will not override that setting. There is also an option to turn off the noise in the settings of the app.
Facebook has already begun testing the feature with a handful of users and says it received “positive feedback.”
“With this update, sound fades in and out as you scroll through videos in News Feed, bringing those videos to life,” Facebook described on its blog on Tuesday.
Read also: Guide to secret 'sexting codes' used by teens goes viral on Facebook
While this change will be considered just a nuisance by some, it may also mean that accessibility will take a hit.
Previously, more and more publishers have been adding subtitles to their videos to compensate for the lack of sound automatically playing, as they realized people tended to watch instead of listen to their content. That was a boon to hearing-impaired viewers. Now, with sound automatically playing, adding subtitles will be considered less necessary.
Additional announcements were made by Facebook this week regarding its video feature. Vertical videos will now be displayed in full and will thus appear larger in your feed, and you’ll now be able to drag videos to any corner of your screen to continue watching as you scroll. According to bbc.com, the company also plans to launch an app on several platforms in a bid to reach TV viewers, similar to Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV. (sul/kes)
