The company is testing a feature that would require users to click before seeing comments.
YouTube's comments section can be a mix between no man's land in a war zone and the Wild West. Translation: The place can be dangerous. So instead of making you read what the New Statesman called "the worst of the internet," YouTube is working on a new feature that would hide comments by default.
YouTube didn't immediately respond to a request for comment but it confirmed the test in a statement to TechCrunch on Friday. "This is one of many small experiments we run all the time on YouTube, and we'll consider rolling features out more broadly based on feedback on these experiments," the Google-owned site told the publication. XDA developers had spotted the test in India on Wednesday.
You have to scroll past engagement buttons and recommended videos to find the comments section on Android and iOS now, but the new test reportedly hides the comments section entirely. Comments would instead be accessible by clicking a new icon, beneath the video and to the right of the thumbs-down icon. Comments could also be found by scrolling past the recommended videos, like before, but you'd have to tap to see them.
It remains to be seen whether a user's engagement with a video would drop if comments were hidden.
