Youtube Comment Spam Is Getting Out of Hand: MKBHD
MKBHD addressed the burgeoning issue of YouTube comment spam which affects thousands of creators. Comment spamming ruin the user experience and misleads some into phishing scams. Thus, it maligns the identity of the creator as well as the platform.
Why is YouTube comment spam so prevalent?
Any website that has surmounting traffic attracts spam in form of comments. YouTube has over 2.6 billion users and millions of channels. Any YouTube channel with decent viewership is brimming with comments which are deceptive. These comments are sneaky attempts to trap YouTube users by guiding them to another link. It is hard to not notice the spam comments but YouTube isn’t able to keep them under control.
MKBHD’s views on the problem
MKBHD aka Marques Brownlee made a dedicated video on spam on his YouTube channel addressing the YouTube comments. His recent videos received a lot of spam that lured his viewers into phishing attempts. Some even texted him for a follow-up about their gifts and giveaways promised by fake accounts.
30% of commenters on one of his YouTube videos were impersonators. They used his exact user name and profile picture to promote a fake giveaway. Scamsters managed to deceive many users and some of them even lost money. Marques Brownlee expressed his distraught and stated that the current YouTube features weren’t super helpful.
YouTube community features can limit comments and hide or block users but cannot keep up with such a level of spam. A shimmer of hope is a comment spam checking tool by YouTube creator ThioJoe. The tool can identify comments and report them to YouTube. It is available for both Windows and iOS and can combat the problem. It is available for free on GitHub and is surprisingly effective in identifying and purging comments.
Marques also demanded a dedicated YouTube tool to block potential impersonators based on how YouTube removed the dislike button for a reportedly small section of creators.
According to Marques Brownlee, YouTube comment spamming won’t stop unless the company prioritizes it. YouTube has a lot on its plate but spamming is an issue that will bring down the website. Maybe they can take help from the community solution built by ThioJoe and identify the pain points. However, YouTube has no dearth of tech talent – but a constrained time frame to treat every problem.
