YouTube will soon ask audiences to add context to videos

YouTube is testing a way for viewers to add of community origin context for videos. The characteristic, called noteswill allow people to add information to clarify things like whether a video is a parody or contains older footage presented as a current event.

If a note is found to be helpful, you may see it appear in a small box below a video. YouTube says only a “limited number” of qualified contributors can write ratings for now, while third-party reviewers will evaluate the usefulness of the ratings. YouTube will use this feedback to train its rating system in the coming weeks and months.

As the pilot progresses, YouTube will eventually start asking viewers whether they find a note “helpful,” “somewhat helpful,” or “unhelpful” and explaining why. It will then feed these responses into its algorithm, which will determine whether a note is “broadly useful.” YouTube says its system is more likely to display a rating if many people who previously rated the ratings differently now rate the same rating as helpful.

Bringing Notes to YouTube will introduce the feature to a wider audience, which could also increase the possibility that Notes contain errors or unrelated information. Other platforms, like Twitter (now X), began testing community notes in 2021 to provide context to posts.

Just like Twitter, it appears YouTube is trying to keep misinformation in check by limiting this pilot to a limited number of users and reviewers to begin with. YouTube says any misinformation “is part of how we learn from the experiment.”