The most recent changes began as a welcome move from the Mountain View giant, as YouTube announced in late Sept. that it was going to update its comments section to help eliminate some of the vitriol, as well as to make comments into conversations under a given video.
Under the reorganization, YouTube would rank comments by relevancy, depending on the person who wrote the comment, +1's to the comment, the number of replies a comment gets, and other indications that the comment isn't just another useless addition to the conversation. Channel moderators would have more power too - including the ability to block certain words from video comments, set certain users to automatically be approved for commenting, and review comments before they are posted below the video.
That sounded great to everyone; from the hard-core YouTube channel moderators to the casual YouTube visitor who could never understand why seemingly every video's comment section would turn into a soup of hate speech and venom.
But when the changes to the commenting system actually took place starting last week, it became apparent that Google was using the update to, once again, try to bolster its dud of a social network, Google+.
You see, in order to do any of these advanced commenting actions - which is the only commenting system that will be available on YouTube after the update fully rolls out - you have to have a Google+ account. That means, not only do channel owners and moderators have to have a Google+ account, anyone who wants to make a comment on a video has to be signed in to a Google+ account.
In fact, to use almost any advanced feature of YouTube, you've got to be signed in to Google+. Don't have a profile on the unpopular social media network? Too bad, you'll have to get one. This doesn't mean that any comment has to have your true name and face attached to it - YouTube still has an option to post under more anonymous conditions, but it's not likely that many users will root through the settings to find that option.
So some YouTube users are rising up. Many hostile comments and videos have been posted, along with petitions to get Google to change back to the old commenting system, but probably the best protest response comes from YouTube uploader Emma Blackery, who wrote and performed a (NSFW Language) song dedicated to the idea that you need a Google+ account to do anything on YouTube now.
Source : Latinos Post
