YouTube is the largest video streaming platform, hosting billions of videos and providing millions of hours of entertainment at no cost. Of course, this all wouldn’t be possible without creators and their communities. YouTube has made considerable efforts through a variety of features to ensure that viewers will have different ways to connect with each other and content creators.
And while there are Communities, Live Chats, video comment sections, and more — direct messaging is one way of communicating that isn’t currently available on the platform. It’s a pretty common feature that’s found on most platforms, so, as you can imagine, it’s one of the most requested features by current users on YouTube. And if it all goes to plan, it’s something we might see in the very near future.
Direct messages are coming back
In what comes as a bit of a surprise, YouTube is now testing direct messaging on its platform through its mobile app (via 9to5Google). For the most part, this is a huge feature that’s going to make it way easier to communicate with people on the platform. YouTube highlights that it will be easier to “share video you love” and “have conversations about them directly.”
The only catch right now is that this feature is only being tested at the moment, rolling out to those that are 18 and older in Poland and Ireland. So, you’re probably not going to hear or see a lot of this for the moment since it’s such a restricted test. What’s interesting is that this isn’t YouTube’s first attempt at a direct messaging system.
Those that have been on YouTube for quite a while might remember the platform giving direct messaging a shoot just a few years back. However, the brand removed it in 2019. It’s unclear why, but YouTube already has quite a big challenge when it comes to monitoring its community in its present state. With direct messages, it’s surely going to face even more challenges and problems.
Naturally, YouTube will be keeping a close eye on all of this, sharing that it will monitor all direct messages to ensure that exchanges follow Community Guidelines. It also states that if it detects any message that goes against the guidelines, it will be flagged. Although useful, it will be interesting to see how YouTube combats spam messages through direct messages.
It will also be interesting to see how the community changes with the introduction of this new feature when it goes live to all. It’s great that YouTube is deciding to add this feature back to the mobile app.
