YouTube says it will warn users when it is spotted and remove their comments for violating the company’s guidelines, according to a message signed by “Rob” at TeamYouTube. Major creators have increasingly been alerted to commenting spam on the platform, and this change and other updates shared Tuesday could help reduce the amount of spam.
If the user continues to post offensive comments, YouTube may block them for up to 24 hours. “Our testing has shown that these warnings/timeouts reduce the likelihood of users leaving violating comments again,” Rob writes in the post. The notification is only available for English commentary for now, “but we hope to bring it to more languages in the coming months,” says Rob. The company has also improved its ability to detect spam in comments, as well as bots in live chats.
Creators including Linus Tech Tips, Jacksepticeye, and MKBHD all made videos about comment spam this year. The spam itself takes many different forms, but you may see waves of copied comments, comments impersonating big creators, or scams for things like Robux. In response, YouTube has introduced a way to increase the severity of comment moderation and a crackdown on tricks by which people impersonate creators, and is now adding a warning for spammers as well.