The YouTube comments section - you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Part of the reason comments can be so unbearable at times is the dreadful moderation tools, but YouTube is seeking to fix that. Today on their Creator Blog, they announced a number of changes to how comments can be moderated.

YouTube creators can now blacklist certain words or phrases, with comments violating the list requiring manual approval. In addition, creators can now opt-in to YouTube's almighty algorithm determining which comments are "potentially inappropriate," and holding them for approval.

There are some public-facing changes to YouTube comments as well. Creators can now pin a specific comment to the top of the comments section, much like on Reddit. Also similar to Reddit, the name of the channel in comments will have a red outline for easier identification. Finally, creators can leave hearts on comments to publicly acknowledge them.

These changes appear to still be rolling out, as I don't see any of them visible on my channel yet. Still, hopefully this will make the average YouTube comment section slightly less awful.

Source: YouTube