Chris Ulmer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Special Books for Special Kids, said that comments were removed from his channel despite no evidence of unacceptable comments, and YouTube told him that if he turned comments back on, he risked his channel being deleted. [EDIT: Turns out, this is not actually the case. See child comments.]
https://twitter.com/chrisulmer/status/1099366622329036801
"Last night I realized all of the comments on SBSK's YouTube channel were disabled. I saw I could manually turn them back on so I did. Then I read a post by YT saying that by turning comments on I risk our channel being deleted. I love and respect YT but IDK what to do.
"The beauty of SBSK is the love and acceptance in the comment section. It shows families and individuals across the world that their [sic] are people who accept them. Many people I interview have been socially isolated. Comments can change their self perception."
So it sounds as if YouTube content creators are now in the unenviable position where they need to actively moderate the comments section for videos featuring children, and if they don't do so to YouTube's satisfaction, they could have their entire channel nuked. Even if you're pretty darn sure that your commenters will behave themselves, that doesn't sound like a good deal.
Seems like YouTube will need to come up with some sort of "trusted subscriber" designation, and allow content creators to permit comments only from those subscribers, so that any random bad actor can't swoop in and destroy a channel.
https://twitter.com/chrisulmer/status/1099366622329036801
"Last night I realized all of the comments on SBSK's YouTube channel were disabled. I saw I could manually turn them back on so I did. Then I read a post by YT saying that by turning comments on I risk our channel being deleted. I love and respect YT but IDK what to do.
"The beauty of SBSK is the love and acceptance in the comment section. It shows families and individuals across the world that their [sic] are people who accept them. Many people I interview have been socially isolated. Comments can change their self perception."
So it sounds as if YouTube content creators are now in the unenviable position where they need to actively moderate the comments section for videos featuring children, and if they don't do so to YouTube's satisfaction, they could have their entire channel nuked. Even if you're pretty darn sure that your commenters will behave themselves, that doesn't sound like a good deal.
Seems like YouTube will need to come up with some sort of "trusted subscriber" designation, and allow content creators to permit comments only from those subscribers, so that any random bad actor can't swoop in and destroy a channel.