YouTube introduced a new comment moderation feature called “Pause” today, which allows creators and moderators to prohibit users from submitting new comments while keeping old remarks on videos.
Instead of totally shutting off comments or holding them to manually evaluate them, you may temporarily delay comments until you have enough time to weed out trolls and hostility. The Pause option can be found under the video-level comment settings, which can be found in the top right-hand corner of the comments panel on either the app’s watch page or in YouTube Studio. When you enable Pause, viewers may notice under the video that you’ve halted all comments, including those that have already been published.
Since October, the video-sharing site has been testing the Pause function. According to YouTube, the experiment group reported feeling less overwhelmed by the large number of comments and having “more flexibility.”
As part of today’s update, YouTube renamed several of its comment moderation options. The new, simpler labels may make it easier for consumers to figure out what the tools accomplish. “On,” “None,” “Hold All,” and “Off,” for example. Other options are less self-explanatory, such as “Basic,” which retains possibly incorrect remarks for review, and “Strict,” which holds a broader range of potentially damaging comments.
In related news, YouTube is now testing a new tool that summarizes comments.