To reduce spam and scam attempts, YouTube has said, starting on August 31, 2023, links in Shorts descriptions, comments, and vertical live feeds will no longer be clickable.
The company says it’s planning to introduce a new, safer way for creators to link their Shorts viewers to other Youtube content by the end of September, as it tries to prevent users from potentially being exposed to malware, phishing scams, and other harmful scam-related content.
The video-streaming platform added that it will also remove the clickable social media icons from channel banners on desktops, as it claims them to be a “source of misleading links.” The obvious downside to these changes is that these links are super important to creators — they enable them to diversify their content by guiding viewers to their accounts on other platforms and build revenue by linking to ads and affiliate content.
In a press release, YouTube says it plans to give creators a new space on channel profiles to place prominent, clickable links to websites, social profiles, merch sites, and other links that comply with the platform’s Community Guidelines. The update will be rolled out across both mobile and desktop starting August 23rd and can be found near the “subscribe” button.
According to YouTube “We don’t have any plans to make any other links unclickable. We know that links are an important way for creators to share information and recommend products/brands to their communities, so we’re actively working on safer ways for creators to include important links in their content.”
YouTube claims that some of the policies and systems it’s already implemented to combat scammers and spammers are having a positive effect. The number of channels that were removed or otherwise terminated due to impersonating other users increased by 35 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year.
Comments held by YouTube’s “increase strictness” feature — which detects any potentially spammy and/or inappropriate comments and gives creators the option to review them — also increased by 200 percent in the first week of June following updates to the feature, compared to the first week of May (before the improvements were released.
