YouTube creators say bot problem is out of their control
By Meg Dowell
Despite YouTube's best efforts to prevent bot accounts from spamming video comment sections on the platform, the problem seems worse than ever. But online creators say they're doing everything they can to address the issue.
Streamer and Moist Esports owner MoistCr1TiKaL's recent video addressing the swarming bot accounts acknowledges that even though speaking up about the issue doesn't help, there also doesn't seem to be a better option.
"Talking about it makes it worse. It only emboldens bots further to become more of a nuisance," they admitted. But these accounts are allegedly directing people to illegal content, harrassing users, and making YouTube comments a miserable and potentially dangerous place to be.
Even though YouTube offers automated moderation tools creators can use to discourage spam accounts from flooding their comment sections, it doesn't seem to be enough.
"They are promoting illegal content through YouTube. That is ... disgusting. And the fact that these accounts are able to do that without YouTube having some kind of automation to shut it down is shocking."
Many YouTube creators are doing everything they can to combat the problem, but it's time-consuming to manually delete every comment from a bot, especially for larger creators with miillions of subscribers. There's also no guarantee that more spam comments won't show up later.
"No one likes to see their comment section end up in this kind of state," MoistCr1TiKaL clarified in response to some fans claiming creators don't care about spam under their videos. "I use all of the automated tools YouTube offers ... most YouTubers do. But sometimes it's just not enough."
YouTube isn't the only social media platform with this problem. The owner of X (Formerly Twitter) claims his reasoning for rebranding the site and shifting many of its features behind a paywall was to discourage bots from dominating users' feeds.
As of 2024, it is estimated that nearly half of all internet activity is dominated by bots. That's a bigger problem than online creators alone can fix. But MoistCr1TiKaL and others hope YouTube will do everything they can to stop the growing spread of spam.
"Maybe at some point YouTube will step in and offer more tools to stop bots. Or maybe they'll do something on the back-end to make it harder for the platform to be exploited by bots. I really don't know."
The best thing you can do when encountering spam in comments and social media feeds you're interacting with is to report it and not engage. Online creators, even if they don't speak out on the issue for fear of worsening it, should at least use the tools available to them to try combatting the problem until a real solution arises.