YouTube’s Colorful Comments

Since the beginning of YouTube, comments have been posted all over every video. In recent years, vulgar comments have been more popular on videos, despite whether the commenter liked the video or not. For some years, YouTube has been testing out different tool systems to try and reduce and/or erase the bad comments; they have even thought of deleting the comment section altogether. While many people are for this idea, many are opposed as well. Among the systems that could work, a filter tool may be most used among the creators’.

One YouTube post in particular reveals just how vulgar and mean some people can be on the Internet. A 19-year old woman with the username Smokahontas, posted a video about, “What languages sound like to foreigners.” In the video she ‘spoke’ in different languages, but it was mostly jargon to show her viewers how the different languages sound. Although some were amazed at how well the interpreted the languages, many people commented expressing how the imitation of the different languages was insulting to those who are native to the language.

With the ability to post in the comment section and being able to say whatever you want, many vulgar comments were posted to this video. A portion of this comment section included:

[Thunayan Almajed]: aha yo can’t speak Arabic like the other languages sorry to say that butI had to because I am arabic and I did not know what you said! Try too work on it more ok

[Illyasviel von Einzbern]: @ [Thunayan Almajed] READ THE FUCKING TITLE AND VIDEOS DESCRIPTION!!

[Julianna Fonseca]: I’m Brazilian, I speak Portuguese and I didn’t understand a thing you said at the portuguese part

[DJ Lufin]: @[Julianna Fonseca] THAT’S THE FUCKING MEANING OF THIS GODDAMN VIDEO! She was talking gibberish, using the local “accent”. So, it sounds like she’s speaking the language, but she is really just imitating the accent.

Due to these types of hateful comments, according to Julia Alexander, YouTube has been trying to clean up their comment section for almost 10 years. Alexander also claims that YouTube and Google Plus have engaged in discussions about the comments section to try and come up with ideas to clean it, but eventually their plan failed. YouTube has introduced tools, “to help video creators’ moderate conversations for welcome and unwelcome voices.” After a variety of tools, YouTube has still not figured out a way to clean their comments.

There are always two sides to every argument, including this one. Some viewers are opposed to deleting the comment section because viewers have the freedom of speech on their side, whether it be hateful or empowering. The other side agrees with cleaning/deleting of the comment section altogether. Although we do have the right of speech, the comment section should not be filled with hate a disrespect.

In terms of fixing this problem 100%, different tools that YouTube provides won’t work: they would have to delete the comment section as a whole. In the meantime, YouTube could make a tool that filters out certain words based on the video creators’ preference. Also, if a creator seems to have one person that is always posting vulgar comments on their video’s, they could have the ability to block that person.

This issue may be an ongoing problem for some who consistently create YouTube videos. YouTube has received many complaint reviews about the comments and if it gets to a certain point in negativity then they should delete the comment section. If YouTube has the power to eliminate hate, as much as there is today, they should take the opportunity to enhance their company.