The Meanest Place on the Internet (YouTube’s Toxicity Problem)

Whenever I talk to my sixth graders about decorum and trolling in online spaces, one platform consistently rises to the surface as their prime example of the “meanest place on the Internet”: YouTube video channels and, more specifically, the comment section of videos. No other platform even comes close for them. Year after year, YouTube is the place most kids point to as the meanest, nastiest place on the Internet. They share their surprise and disgust at what people will write, and get away with, and how commenters will openly attack others, including the most vulnerable video makers.

As YouTube is the place my young students spend the most amount of their online time — for some, the time spent can be a few hours a day — it always strikes me as frustrating that they are both exposed to potentially great videos (and there certainly are great videos on YouTube, for any kind of interest and topic and niche learning) in combination with humanity acting so plainly bad, it makes me embarrassed on our collective behalf.

Maybe YouTube (aka Google) is finally understanding this.

Along with the changes to its platform to make it in federal compliance for young viewers (all YouTube channel operations must now designate their channel for an audience of children or not, which mandates certain settings for video uploads), YouTube seems to be making more visible its efforts to root out the negativity.

We know that the comment section is an important place for fans to engage with creators and each other. At the same time, we heard feedback that comments are often where creators and viewers encounter harassment. – from YouTube Blog

YouTube folks claim in a new post that they are now beefing up the way comments are filtered and giving more flexibility to YouTube creators, as well as setting forth more algorithms to catch toxic comments before they even reach the comment bin. (See Comment Settings for YouTube, too)

There is a link to a Transparency Report, that shows how many videos have been removed and some other data, too, that is sort of fascinating to look at. For example, it seems to indicate that 500 million comments have been removed from July through September alone. Sheesh.

Well, we’ll see if it all works to make YouTube a more positive place while still protecting free speech (I acknowledge this is a juggling act, but, figure it out, people). My students will tell me if it’s working or not, I am sure.

Peace (everywhere),
Kevin

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