The new YouTube comment system opened the door to more spam. So what has YouTube done to stem the tide? November 26, 2013 7:02 AM PST (Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET) YouTube's new comment system was being bitten by a rise in spam, but the company fought back. In a blog posted late Monday, the YouTube comments team acknowledged the increase in comment span since revamping the format a couple of weeks ago. The change was designed to cut down on anonymous and frivolous comments by requiring commenters to use their Google+ names. But the move showed that people can be jerks even under their own names, actually triggering a surge in spam. In response, the comment team launched three updates to combat the problem, notably better recognition of bad links and impersonation attempts, improved ASCII art detection, and a change in how long comments are displayed. The team also said that more people are using the new comment system and taking advantage of such features as threaded conversations and formatted comments. What's next on the YouTube todo list? The team plans to improve the way YouTube users can manage their comments and will give content creators tools for bulk comment moderation. It also wants to improve comment ranking and the moderation of older-style comments. A quick tour through YouTube did show considerably fewer spam comments than I found a week or two ago. So YouTube's spam-fighting efforts seem to be paying off.
The new YouTube comment system opened the door to more spam. So what has YouTube done to stem the tide?
(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)
YouTube's new comment system was being bitten by a rise in spam, but the company fought back.
In a blog posted late Monday, the YouTube comments team acknowledged the increase in comment span since revamping the format a couple of weeks ago. The change was designed to cut down on anonymous and frivolous comments by requiring commenters to use their Google+ names. But the move showed that people can be jerks even under their own names, actually triggering a surge in spam.
In response, the comment team launched three updates to combat the problem, notably better recognition of bad links and impersonation attempts, improved ASCII art detection, and a change in how long comments are displayed. The team also said that more people are using the new comment system and taking advantage of such features as threaded conversations and formatted comments.
What's next on the YouTube todo list? The team plans to improve the way YouTube users can manage their comments and will give content creators tools for bulk comment moderation. It also wants to improve comment ranking and the moderation of older-style comments.
A quick tour through YouTube did show considerably fewer spam comments than I found a week or two ago. So YouTube's spam-fighting efforts seem to be paying off.
