YouTube presents new feature to address lethal comments

YouTube today announced it’s launching a new feature that will push commenters to reconsider their hateful and offensive remarks before posting.

It will also begin testing a filter that allows creators to avoid having to read some of the hurtful comments on their channel that had been automatically held for review.

The new features are meant to address longstanding issues with the quality of comments on YouTube’s platform a problem creators have complained about for years.

The company said it will also soon run a survey aimed at giving equal opportunity to creators, and whose data can help the company to better understand how some creators are more disproportionately impacted by online hate and harassment.

The new commenting feature, rolling out today, is a significant change for YouTube.

The feature seems when users are about to post something offensive in a video’s comments section and warns to “Keep comments respectful.” The message also tells users to check the site’s Community Guidelines if they’re not sure if a comment is appropriate.

The pop-up then nudges users to click the “Edit” button and revise their comment by making “Edit” the more prominent choice on the screen that appears.

The feature will not actually prevent a user from posting their comment, however. If they want to proceed, they can click the “Post Anyway” option instead.

YouTube states that it has increased the number of daily hate speech comment removals by 46x since early 2019. And in the last quarter, of the more than 1.8 million channels it terminated for violating policies, more than 54,000 terminations were for hate speech. That indicates a growing problem with online discourse that likely influenced these new measures.

Some would argue the platforms have a responsibility to do even more, but it’s a difficult balance.

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