YouTube's comment section is one of the platform's most significant features—it opens a direct line of communication between a video creator and other audience members.
But sometimes, your comments seem to get lost in the pipeline. You know you typed it and hit send, but you can't find it in the comment section for some reason. There could be a few reasons for this...
1. Your Comments Have Been Flagged as Spam
If you leave the same comment in multiple videos, you risk being flagged as spam. This can also happen if multiple users flag your comments as spam.
If that happens, you'll lose certain privileges, such as commenting on videos. YouTube's algorithm will also consider any subsequent comments spam and delete them.
2. Your Comment Has a Link to an External Site
If you leave a link in a comment on a video, it will most likely be deleted. YouTube's algorithm frowns on comments with external links because they redirect viewers away from the creator's page and are usually spam. This is a reaction to the rise of YouTube spambots, which typically spam comment sections with external links to potentially malicious or fraudulent websites.
Usually, YouTube will notify the content creator, and they can either approve or delete the comment.
3. Your Comment Contains Explicit Language
YouTube strives to be a family-friendly platform, so one of its guidelines is that it does not tolerate vulgar or explicit language. So the platform may delete your comments if they contain an explicit word, regardless of the context.
4. Your Comment Is Classified as Hate Speech
YouTube has stepped up its efforts to combat hate speech on the platform. This means that any comments that smack of racial prejudice or make statements that glorify Nazi ideology will be removed.
YouTube also expands the definition of hate speech to include discrimination based on age, gender identity, caste, sexual orientation, religion, and a variety of other factors. As a result, if your comment violates any of the anti-hate speech guidelines, it will be deleted.
5. Your Comment Is Offensive
This is highly subjective, as what one person finds offensive may be acceptable to another.
But, there are some definite instances where YouTube will remove a comment for this reason. For example, comments that glorify self-harm or encourage others to commit suicide will be flagged as inappropriate and will be automatically removed. YouTube also removes pornographic or sexually-explicit comments.
YouTube may also remove your comments if it deems them emotionally harmful to other users.
6. Your Comments Are Pending Review
It's possible that your comments aren't deleted (yet). Some channels implement temporary holds on comments so that the creator can review them. This comment moderation could be a hold on all comments or only comments that contain specific words.
If your comments don't appear, they have been deleted or are on a review hold. If your comment gets approved, it will later appear in the comments section. Unfortunately, there's no way to know either way.
Learn More About YouTube's Community Guidelines
These reasons are not exhaustive in the least. You can check YouTube Community Guidelines for more reasons why your comments keep getting removed from the comments section. If that's too wordy for you, you can just focus on the banned topics you can't talk about on YouTube.
It also helps that YouTube has a feature that reminds you to comment respectfully, so that you can reconsider potentially offensive comments.
Who Deletes Comments on YouTube Channels?
With over 500 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube every minute, moderation in each of their comment sections is heavily automated. YouTube's algorithms are programmed to identify and delete comments that violate the platform's community guidelines. In a Google transparency report, the company confirmed that, from October 2021 to December 2021, YouTube removed over 1.2 billion comments that violated its guidelines.
However, the algorithm isn't perfect, and it can (and frequently does) miss nuance and context that humans would easily understand. For example, the algorithm isn't very good at detecting spam comments, which has become a source of frustration for many creators.
YouTube does have a team of human moderators that can review and delete comments. And as we mentioned before, Video creators can also delete and moderate the comments on their channels. But with the volume of videos and size of the audience on the platform, it's easy to picture how difficult it would be to keep up.
Keep Your Voice on YouTube
It's frustrating not to be able to comment on a YouTube video if you want to. To prevent getting blocked or banned, get familiar with the community guidelines so that you can keep your voice on YouTube.