looks like totally blind people won't be able to comment on any YouTube videos using the YouTube website until they get this issue fixed. every time I hit the comments button on a video it acts like I hit the ask button instead. I have tried changing a bunch of stuff in settings to no avail. I am using an iPhone SE third generation with VoiceOver. if anyone knows how a totally blind person can get to the comments section of a video on the YouTube website please let me know. I need a workaround.
Comments
Yep getting it as well, and there's a roundabout solution but...
Getting this as well you cant see comments at all.
With that beeing said, there's a roundabout solution but its, clunky as hell. Page menu, then more, then request desktop website. Comments will be the last heading and then each comment is its own heading for the username who wrote the comment.
Still accessable on a mac
I comment on videos all the time on my Mac, it’s quite easy.
Just press h a few times and you will land in the comments area, than press tab and shift tab to focus on the place to write one.
They're not inaccessible from the app.
I comment on videos from my phone frequently.
Tip for YouTube application
If you are using the official YT app, navigate just to the right of the player controls until you find, 'Ask'. If you navigate by Heading, you might find the Comments heading, but its a little janky. You can alternatively swipe over from the player controls and you will eventually land on the comments heading.
however you get there, double-tap on the heading which will act as a clickable object, and will open the comments panel.
From here you can read and respond to comments as needed.
HTH.
I prefer using the website instead of the app
I prefer not to use the YouTube app if I can help it because once I download the app I'm afraid it will be like Facebook and not let me browse YouTube on the web anymore. i'll try the request desktop website thing again. I tried it when this first started happening with YouTube and it messed up my phone so bad that I had to end up restoring it from a back up and I lost some of my music and there's no way to get it back without a computer. i've done an iOS update since then so I'll try that again. Hopefully it don't foul up my phone this time.
request desktop website works, sort of, but…
request desktop website allows me to see the comments, but adding a new comment is impossible because the text field is not accessible with voiceover. Any other workaround without using the app?
Change up your browser?
Give Firefox, Edge, Chrome, or Brave a shot?
Just food for thought. 😊
I’m able to read all the comments
Are we talking about adding comments? Cause I’m able to read all the comments on YouTube through YouTube website with my iPhone 15 and iPhone SE third generation both on the Safari browser. I’m assuming it’s the YouTube website anyway because I just tell Siri to search YouTube for things and then open through Safari. I’ve never tried adding comments though so this may be different. I’m not sure. I’m sorry if I’m not being helpful. I’m just not quite sure which thing we’re talking about. I guess hopefully you’ll find a solution that works.
Check your zoom level.
On the Mac in Firefox I couldn't see comments at all. At one point I mentioned it to my wife and she took a look at it and said it was really zoomed, in or out I forget which. Resetting the zoom level to normal fixed it.
I don't know if that can apply to iOS browsers, but I mention it just in case.
found a workaround
I was experimenting last night and this morning with YouTube, and I finally figured out a workaround. for some reason if you set the VoiceOver rotor to characters and put the cursor on the letter C in the word comments then click the button it will work as it always did before. if you don't use that trick, the ask dialog will come up regardless of whether you clicked that button or the comments button. this is all in the mobile view of the page in Safari by the way. i've never messed with the zoom settings so I'll have to try it.
Their IOSapp is poorly accessible now as well
I’d love to chime in as a totally blind blogger using their IOS app every day: their “you” tap now has a lot of unmarked buttons. Voiceover doesn’t even announce them as buttons, but rather, it just clicks and says nothing. Screen recognition does help, but it should be a backup uption, to start wwith, and second, this feature is still pretty clunky and finicky….
It took YouTube a couple years to fix there accessibility in video descriptions when Voiceover either didn’t read it propperly, or wouldn’t read a word from it at all at some point….
P.s. By the way, in 2026, the main accessibility question resounds more and more often: how many accessibility engineers still work for Apple, Metta, Google, etc…. If any. I’d love someone to shed some light on this topic if you know a thing or 2 about it :)