this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023

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YouTubers can now pause comments after Google moderation tweaks (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 74 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't trust videos that have comments disabled, they're usually shills or BS.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Depends on the content

If it's a product or service, then I'll find other sources before buying

If it's an ~~academic source~~ lecture recording or news story, then I prefer comments to be disabled. Shows me that the channel cares enough about it

[–] 14th_cylon@lemm.ee 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

if academic or news source is scared of being called out, i don't trust them. yes, i do understand that with worthy comments there is a lot of garbage, but that is cost of doing business.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I meant lecture recordings that are only meant for the students in the class

Sure we can invite external opinions but it's not worth the trouble. People can call out the stuff elsewhere

[–] 14th_cylon@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago

you can have them unlisted, so only people with the link have access. once you make them public and disable comments, it is just suspicious.

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That’s good so when someone releases a 4 hour video about me I can just pause my comments.

[–] jackalope@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago

lol that was my thought too.

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 11 months ago

Dude this is only like 10 years too late. Youtubers deserve comorehensive moderation and curstion tools. Youtube comments should be at the forefront of video discussion.

[+] ssf7 -8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This sounds like a positive change though

[–] ssf7 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

No it isn't. Now people will not be able to comment on videos if the creator decides to make a controversial video. Without dislikes and now the ability to disable comments, youtubers can make up any kind of garbage and misleading content and you will not be able to verify it by looking at the dislikes or comments.

[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

They could disable comments on their videos before, too. Now they can pause and unpause comments.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is even worse IMO. The youtuber can have an active comment section but pause comments if discussion goes somewhere they don't like, such as criticizing their topic. They can then request certain comments to be removed or accounts blocked/banned.

This can guve the appearance of free speech while actually promoting censorship.

[–] GrayBoltWolf@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Going to get downvoted for this, but it’s a private platform where free speech laws don’t apply.

Not to mention the channel owner already had the ability to delete any comment they wanted.

[–] Apollo2323@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It is not only free speech but the fairness of a review of a product. Most people go to YouTube to see the review of a product and if comments can be manipulated that way many people will fall for a shitty product.

[–] GrayBoltWolf@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Nothing has really changed though, you could already delete comments to make the comment section look however you want.

[–] Osa-Eris-Xero512@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So now they can pause comments until the heat dies down while looking reasonable because of the existing comments.

[–] atocci@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

If a video is so bad that the comments have to be paused, I doubt any existing comments would make it look good though.

[–] ssf7 -2 points 11 months ago

Doesn't matter. They can constantly pause and unpause comments to frustrate the audience and eventually they will lose the motivation to comment.

[–] speff@disc.0x-ia.moe -2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yea I remember that argument being used for when they removed likes/dislikes - surprise, YT’s not flooded with false videos any more than it was before.

And it doesn’t surprise me that some shithead that uses the term poojeet is against tools to help reduce toxic brigading.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I like giving more tools to the creators and honestly even a little better moderation.

I don't really dig them removing all the indicators of poor content though. Doing the math of how old is this, how popular is the subject, and shouldn't it have more likes,It's honestly getting a bit old. It doesn't surface itself as much if you mainly stick to watching certain content providers for entertainment, but when you're actually looking for discussions on a subject, instructions on doing.. well anything, it isn't as easy as it used to be.

[–] speff@disc.0x-ia.moe 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I know someone who’s trying to become a content creator on YT and is trying to study The Algorithm to make it work in their favor. My impression of Google’s direction for YouTube is that they want to take over agency of curation from the user to The Algorithm.

That is, I believe they don’t want people to look at views, likes, comments to know if something’s worth it - they want people to find/trust videos returned by the search results and recommended videos list. My guess is that may fuzz lower view count videos next, but who knows.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Could be, at least at the moment it doesn't seem to be helping my search results. I used to be able to find helpful valid videos within the first couple of hits, now after you get about 4 or 5 videos deep It starts giving you tangently related things. I'm having to go back and put quotes in my search and phrase it different ways. Maybe part of a problem was the production quality of the valid helpful videos was poor. One of the best sources used to be the odd middle eastern kid typing in notepad. Here's how you fix this one specific problem in this one specific version of a program. He would open the program run through a few settings and show you exactly where the setting is, and that was it It was a 30-42 second video. I honestly miss those.