YouTube is testing a new feature called “Community Notes” to enhance content accuracy and viewer experience. This feature allows users to add context or corrections to videos, similar to similar tools on other platforms, with the goal of addressing misinformation and improving video understanding.
Community Notes will let eligible users submit notes that provide relevant, timely, and easily understandable context. These notes could clarify when a video is a parody, update outdated product reviews, or correct false information.
The system for Community Notes is akin to Twitter’s Community Notes: one person writes the initial note, and others vote on its helpfulness—options include helpful, somewhat helpful, or unhelpful. Only notes voted as helpful will be displayed beneath the video.
YouTube acknowledges that mistakes are likely during the initial rollout and views these errors as part of the learning process for the feature.
Initially, the feature will be available to a limited number of users. Those selected will receive an email or notification in their creator studio. To qualify, channels must be over six months old with no community guidelines violations in the past year, and cannot be managed by multiple owners or be a child’s account supervised by parents through YouTube’s in-app options.
