In their latest blog post, the YouTube team gave an update on the fight against spam, bots and abusive language. With new and updated tools, YouTube wants to tackle the problems more successfully, which according to the team has been a main concern of the community. Accordingly, priority was given to the fight against spam.
One of the most important changes is improved spam detection in the comments section. The development team has been hard at work improving automated spam detection, detecting and eliminating 1.1 billion spam comments in the first half of this year. However, spammers adapt accordingly, so YouTube uses machine learning to automatically adjust its tools at best. The same applies to the automated detection in the live chat area for live streams.
Regarding offensive comments from actual human users, YouTube is introducing a deletion warning and time limits. The system warns users if their comments violate the Community Guidelines and removes their comments. If the same user continues to leave offensive content, they will be banned for 24 hours. Internal tests showed that the existing systems can reduce repeat offenders.
Another small but important change affects content creators. The system now gives a rough estimate of when a newly uploaded video has passed processing and will be available in full resolution. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 1080p, 2160p or 4320p material.
