We’ve all experienced our share of problems in the comments section on YouTube. From bots to spammers looking to defraud unsuspecting users with fake giveaways and crypto scams, the comments section on the platform has always had its issues.
YouTube seems to be fed up with the problem and is coming for all of those users.
In a blog post on the company’s website today, “Rob” from YouTube announced a number of new measures that the company is taking to prevent such activity on the platform. The first is what they are calling “Improved Spam Detection on comments,” which he says has already removed over a billion spam comments in the first half of 2022.
We’ve been working on improving our automated detection systems and machine learning models to identify and remove spam. In fact, we’ve removed over 1.1 billion spammy comments in the first six months of 2022. As spammers change their tactics, our machine learning models are continuously improving to better detect the new types of spam.
The second is “Improved bot detection in live chat,” which seeks to handle bots from accessing and interrupting live streams from creators.
We’ve improved our spambot detection to keep bots out of live chats. We know bots negatively impacts the live streaming experience, as the live chat is a great way to engage and connect with other users and creators.This update should make live streaming a better experience for everyone.
The last, and probably the most notable, is “Comment removal warnings & timeouts.” If a user is caught violating the company’s Community Guidelines with their comments, they will be temporarily suspended from using the comments feature.
We’re launching a new feature that warns users when we’ve detected and removed some of their comments for violating our Community Guidelines. Additionally, if a user continues to leave multiple abusive comments, they may receive a timeout and be temporarily unable to comment for up to 24 hours. Our testing has shown that these warnings/timeouts reduce the likelihood of users leaving violative comments again.
The company says that it is rolling out the notification about a temporary suspension to English-speaking comments only right now, but is planning to roll it out to more languages “in the coming months.”
With all of the spam we have seen on YouTube over the years, we’ll see if these new measures have the impact that the company is hoping for. I, like everyone else, am tired of seeing all of the crypto scams.