(Hypebot) — Infamous for its bellicose discourse, YouTube’s comments section might be getting a bit of a makeover thanks to a new comments channel guideline option which will allow artists to weed out some of the more intense vitriol.
Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0
It’s happened to everyone online sooner or later. You spend a lot of time working on post or a video, pouring your heart into it, only to receive some soul-crushing negative comments that are more hurtful than helpful. As we now know, these comments can have a detrimental effect on your mental health if you’re feeling vulnerable (as most artists are). Now YouTube will soon attempt to do something about this by allowing creators to set channel comments guidelines to help control those wild, out-of-place reactions.
A small set of creators are testing the new guidelines feature that allows you to set up to 3 rules that everyone has to agree to before they can comment on your channel. This is something similar to Facebook’s group posting rules, which lays out exactly what’s expected from the user if they are to participate in the group.
The hope is that the guidelines will stop some people from posting a comment flame before they even start, but real enforcement is manual. What you have on your side is that you can always tell the commenter that they were warned before banning a bad actor, but you still have to read the post to determine if it’s actionable first.
That said, YouTube is also expanding its process for finding and holding potentially harmful comments, which are selected automatically by an algorithm. The process detects such comments then moves them to a “Held For Review” area in the YouTube Studio section of the channel. If the channel owner doesn’t take action within 60 days they’re removed automatically.
The latest channel comments guidelines are just another way for YouTube to limit toxic comments and trolls who bomb feeds with criticism and remarks. To be sure, constructive criticism is not at question here. It’s the intentionally hurtful and personal comments that the service is trying to combat.
