YouTube announces rewards program to deal with trolls
The video streaming giant, which is notorious for hosting nasty comments, is calling on its community of users to help moderate them.
With the launch of its new YouTube Heroes program this week, the Google-owned platform will reward users for reporting inappropriate or abusive comments.
The program will also reward people for writing correct video captions and subtitles, and forfielding forum questions in YouTube Help.
Users who perform the aforementioned tasks will earn users points that can be cashed in for perks like previews of YouTube product launches and pre-release product tests.
Users who join the YouTube Heroes program are also given access to a dashboard tool for online moderation, along with exclusive workshops and ‘Hero hangouts.’
“You work hard to make YouTube better for everyone and, like all heroes, you deserve a place to call home,” YouTube said in its announcement video.
Users need to report 1,000 inappropriate comments before hitting the highest rewards tier.
The program further cements YouTube’s push to expand its social network capabilities. Earlier this month it launched in beta YouTube Community, a product which allows users to engage with their viewers on the Community page using text, images, videos and GIFs.
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and the third most visited website after Google and Facebook.