With over a billion accounts from around the world, it is quite hard for YouTube to exclusively moderate its own site, which is why the company is announcing a new programme wherein the job to moderate comments and videos now falls on the hands of the viewers.
Advertisement
YouTube’s comment section has always been plagued by abusive or hateful rhetorics. With millions of people watching, downloading or uploading videos at any given moment, moderating the site has become a colossal task for the company. Before now, channel owners were responsible for policing most of the comments on their videos with YouTube only stepping in when necessary. It’s called YouTube Heroes, and it asks site users to moderate their fellow creators in exchange for a number of tiered perks. For example, you will receive one point for accurately reporting a video that doesn’t follow YouTube’s community guidelines or even receive 10 points for being the best answer in the YouTube Help forums. Those abilities are just for the first level of the program. However, the popular video sharing portal revealed that the portal fully depends on the flagging of issues by users. By the time you reach the highest level, level five, you will be rewarded with the opportunity to review products early and apply for something that YouTube is calling the Heroes Summit. As the “heroes” accrue points by participating in the program, they will eventually be able to get sneak previews of YouTube product launches and test products before they are released to the general public, the site said.
Advertisement
Thankfully, a new initiative from YouTube themselves is seeking to do exactly this. This means that granting these parties a greater degree of control regarding the goings on of the site has left YouTube creators concerned about the Heroes program, and the damaging impact it could have on their channels. Giving dedicated commenters some sense of responsibility could also help to change the community’s overall tone. The company is planning to make the platform function more like a social networking site, and it seems like the company is finding ways to make content moderation easier for everyone.
