New YouTube feature could give creators a new way to interact with subscribers

With YouTube's worsening bot problem plaguing the comment sections of videos big and small, content creators have been desperate for a solution. The platform may eventually introduce a workaround that solves one problem: Making interactions between creators and their fans more enjoyable.

The platform is reportedly testing a new feature called Community Spaces on select creator accounts. While creators can currently post text-only updates to their subscribers on the Community Posts tab on their channels, Community Spaces would create a place where subscribers could share their own posts like on other social media platforms.

With apps like X (Formerly Twitter) making it harder for content creators to share their videos and interact with fans, a feature such as Community Spaces would create a central place for subscribers of a particular YouTube channel to interact with the creator behind the camera.

These spaces would look a lot like an X or Facebook feed, with posts arranged in a continuous stream that subscribers and creators could respond to and interact with. It's unclear when YouTube plans to roll the feature out to a wider pool of creators, if Community Spaces are successful.

One question that arises from this feature is how, if at all, it will prevent bots from infiltrating the new tab the way they've overrun many channels' video comment sections. Beyond the built-in moderation tools YouTube provides creators for their videos, there currently doesn't seem to be a reliable strategy in place for protecting content creators and their fans from the malicious content many of these bots bait accounts into clicking on.

Perhaps the hope is that a feature like Community Spaces will provide a central location for channel subscribers to form a stronger sense of community ... and possibly band together to fight off spam accounts on their favorite channels once and for all.