YouTube has announced that it’s next big platform upgrade will involve the comment system, and for the first time, content creators can filter out words they don’t want used. That means that, for the first time, I can actually block use of the n-word. I have complained about this, and yelled about this, and blogged about this, and tweeted about this, forever, it seems. Now I’m finally getting action.
It was completely wrong to have an environment where black content creators were plagued by racists and could do nothing about it. Turning off the comments section was like punishing everyone for the acts of a few. And in my case, I have almost 3,000 video and that translates to a lot of comments, daily and monthly.
Here are the YouTube changes that are coming:
1) Comments you care about move to the top: You’ll see posts at the top of the list from the video’s creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles.
2) Join the conversation publicly or privately: You can choose to start a conversation so that it is seen by everyone on YouTube and Google+, only people in your Circles or just your bestie. Like Gmail, replies are threaded so you can easily follow conversations.
3) Better ways to moderate comments: You have new tools to review comments before they’re posted, block certain words or save time by auto-approving comments from certain fans. These can help you spend less time moderating, and more time sharing videos and connecting with your fans.
YEAH!
Stay tuned.