[00:00] The comments section is where your community goes&nbsp; to engage directly with your content. It's where&nbsp;&nbsp; you get direct feedback and build conversations&nbsp; around your videos. We know for creators,&nbsp;&nbsp; managing all of those comments is a big part&nbsp; of your job. That’s why we’ve focused on giving&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:16] you more control and a consistent experience&nbsp; with new comment filters and sorting options.&nbsp; comments are sorted by Most relevant as a default&nbsp; view. This aims to surface the conversations you&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:30] may want to engage with, like questions from&nbsp; viewers, based on your channel’s activity.&nbsp; You have two other sorting options: Top comments,&nbsp; which surfaces what viewers are most likely&nbsp;&nbsp; to value and interact with; and Newest first,&nbsp; which displays comments in chronological order.&nbsp;
[00:48] If you prefer a different view, you can save&nbsp; your preferred sort and filter options as a&nbsp;&nbsp; default. This feature is now also available&nbsp; on Studio Mobile, and your channel’s settings&nbsp;&nbsp; will automatically sync between both. To save a default filter on desktop:&nbsp;
[01:04] Go to the Community tab in YouTube Studio. Click the Filter bar.&nbsp; Choose your desired sort and filter options.&nbsp; Filters also allow you to search for specific&nbsp;&nbsp; keywords, or filter by subscriber status, and even&nbsp; by the commenter's subscriber count. Keep in mind,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:21] while the 'Top' sort is available on video and&nbsp; post comments, it cannot be saved as a default.&nbsp; From the filter menu, select&nbsp; Set current filters as default. To save a default filter on mobile: In the YouTube Studio app,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:36] from the bottom menu, tap Community. Next to “Comments,” tap View all.&nbsp; Choose your desired sort option In the top left, tap the Filter icon.&nbsp; Choose your filters, scroll to the bottom, and&nbsp; tap Set current filters as your default view.&nbsp;
[01:53] Within the Response Status filter, you'll&nbsp; find options for Unresponded, Responded,&nbsp;&nbsp; and New replies to your response. Now you can&nbsp; select any combination of these to quickly&nbsp;&nbsp; find comments you need to follow up on. Once you’ve found the relevant comments,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:09] you have a suite of tools to engage&nbsp; with your community directly.&nbsp; To reply to comments on your videos and posts,&nbsp; simply click the Reply button. When you jump in,&nbsp;&nbsp; it shows your audience that you’re listening.&nbsp; Responding to comments is a great way to show&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:24] your personality, engage and connect with&nbsp; viewers, and help build a positive community.&nbsp; icon next to the thumbs up and thumbs down.&nbsp; Viewers will see your picture with a small&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:38] red heart on their comment, and may receive a&nbsp; notification that you loved what they wrote.&nbsp; From a video or post's comment page, you can&nbsp; also pin a comment to the top of the feed to&nbsp;&nbsp; highlight it for all of your viewers. You can&nbsp; pin your own comment to clarify something from&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:55] your video, ask your audience a specific&nbsp; question, or tease a specific moment. Or,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can pin a fan comment that stood out&nbsp; to you to set the tone for the community.&nbsp; Now let’s talk about how to handle&nbsp; hurtful or inappropriate comments.&nbsp;
[03:11] YouTube’s priority is to make sure that comments&nbsp; provide a safer experience for all users.&nbsp; Here are some things you can do at a channel&nbsp; level to proactively manage your comment section:&nbsp;
[03:23] Set upload defaults. To set comment&nbsp; upload defaults, go to YouTube Studio&nbsp;&nbsp; Settings. Select Community Moderation,&nbsp; then look under the Content Controls tab.&nbsp; Under "Comments on new videos and posts,"&nbsp; you can choose to turn comments On or Off.&nbsp;
[03:39] If you choose to keep comments on, you can&nbsp; adjust your moderation filter's strictness:&nbsp; Selecting None ensures no&nbsp; comments will be held back.&nbsp; Basic holds potentially inappropriate comments. Strict will hold a broader range of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:55] potentially inappropriate comments. You can also choose to Hold all comments.&nbsp; To apply these to existing videos in bulk, go&nbsp; to your Videos tab in YouTube Studio. Select&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:07] the videos, click Edit, and choose Comments. Create a blocked words list. In your channel&nbsp;&nbsp; Settings under “Community Moderation,” you can add&nbsp; words or phrases that you don’t want to appear in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:19] your comments section. Comments containing these&nbsp; blocked words will be held in YouTube Studio.&nbsp; Add comment moderators. You can assign&nbsp; Standard and Managing Moderators. Both&nbsp;&nbsp; help review and manage comments on your videos. Standard Moderators:. Can remove comments from&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:35] public view or hide users. When a moderator&nbsp; removes a comment, it is moved to your “Held”&nbsp;&nbsp; tab for you to make a final decision, rather than&nbsp; being deleted entirely. Standard Moderators cannot&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:48] manage channel settings like blocked words. Managing Moderators: Have all Standard&nbsp;&nbsp; permissions, plus the ability to manage settings&nbsp; like Blocked Words and manage Standard Moderators&nbsp;
[05:00] To assign a moderator: Go to Studio Settings,&nbsp; then Community Moderation, then the User&nbsp;&nbsp; Management tab and add the user's channel URL. If someone has written something inappropriate&nbsp;&nbsp; in your comments, or if you find a comment&nbsp; that requires individual action, you can:&nbsp;
[05:17] Remove the comment and all&nbsp; of its replies. To do so,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can go to your YouTube Studio “Comments” tab&nbsp; and click these three dots, and select “Remove.”&nbsp; Hide the user from your channel. This prevents&nbsp; a specific user's future comments from appearing&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:33] publicly on your channel. You can hide a&nbsp; user by selecting the three dot menu from&nbsp;&nbsp; one of their comments, or in YouTube Studio. Flag the comment to YouTube. Flagging helps&nbsp;&nbsp; protect the community from bad actors by sending&nbsp; the content to YouTube for review. If the comment&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:50] violates YouTube Community Guidelines, it&nbsp; will be removed from the platform. You can&nbsp;&nbsp; also remove the comment yourself to ensure&nbsp; it’s immediately hidden from public view.&nbsp; Remember, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by&nbsp; your comments, you can always choose to pause&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:05] or turn off comments completely by selecting&nbsp; these settings in your Community defaults.&nbsp; We hope these tools help you better manage&nbsp; and engage with your community. To learn more,&nbsp;&nbsp; check out the Help Center&nbsp; links in the description.