YouTube has introduced a new tool that allows creators to temporarily pause comments, preventing new comments from being added to videos while keeping those that have already been posted. In a blog post, YouTube said the feature “allows creators to take a break from managing comments” and provides “some flexibility around how comments are managed,” according to a report from The Verge.
Prior to this update, YouTube creators had only two options for moderating comments: either to subject comments to manual review before they are posted, or to disable all comments on a video entirely.
YouTube says the pause feature is rolling out now and we have asked the company for clarification on global availability and will update this story if we hear back. As part of its announcement, YouTube also renamed some of its existing moderation settings to make them easier to understand.
This means that instead of offering options to “hold potentially inappropriate comments for review” and a switch to “increase strictness,” users will instead be given a simple option between on and paused. Enabling comments also brings up a toggle for some optional moderation levels to choose from: none (completely unmoderated), basic (which keeps “potentially inappropriate” comments for review), strict (which keeps a wider range of comments for review), and disabled.
You can find the new pause option in the video-level comment settings on the watch page within the YouTube app, or in YouTube Studio on both mobile and desktop.
