YouTube Tests Crowdsourced ‘Notes’ Feature

YouTube is rolling out a new experimental feature called “Notes,” designed to allow users to add contextual information to videos, thereby helping viewers better understand the content they’re viewing. The feature is akin to Community Notes on X. YouTube aims to clarify video content, such as identifying parody songs or indicating when older footage is being misrepresented as current.

During this pilot phase, only a select group of users, those with active YouTube channels in good standing, will be invited to write notes. Viewers in the U.S. will begin seeing these notes on videos in the upcoming weeks and months. To ensure the reliability and usefulness of the notes, third-party evaluators will assess their accuracy and helpfulness. YouTube will then use these evaluations to train its systems.

Initially, the Notes feature will be available to a limited number of users on mobile devices in the U.S., specifically in English. YouTube is aware that the test phase might encounter issues, such as notes that do not accurately match the video content or contain incorrect information. However, the company plans to learn from these mistakes and is open to feedback from both viewers and creators to improve the quality of the notes.

This initiative comes at a crucial time, with the 2024 U.S. presidential election on the horizon and the growing challenge of misinformation fueled by generative AI. YouTube’s move to introduce this feature highlights its commitment to minimizing the spread of misinformation on its platform, a significant issue that plagued the 2020 election and is expected to be even more problematic this year.

YouTube will employ an algorithm to determine which notes are published based on the ratings received. The algorithm will focus on identifying notes that are helpful to a broad audience. For example, if a significant number of viewers who previously rated notes differently now rate a particular note as helpful, YouTube is more likely to display that note under the video.

If the evaluators find the notes to be helpful, they will be displayed under the video. Viewers will also be prompted to rate the notes as “helpful,” “somewhat helpful,” or “unhelpful” and provide reasons for their ratings, such as citing high-quality sources or neutral writing.

The system is designed to continuously improve as more notes are submitted and rated across various types of videos on the platform. As YouTube refines this feature, it will assess whether it makes sense to officially roll it out.