YouTube is full of educational, entertaining, and useful content. From great tutorial videos to intelligent opinion pieces. Unfortunately, YouTube can sometimes be home to hate speech, bullying, etc.
Often, YouTube catches these things before reaching a wider audience, but they occasionally need help finding these offenders.
This article will cover how to report a YouTube channel, videos, comments, playlists, and more.
You can help make YouTube safer, so let’s get straight into it.
How To Report On YouTube:
How To Report a YouTube Channel
If you want to report a YouTube channel for an inappropriate background image, inappropriate profile picture, or inappropriate actions such as:
- Harassment or cyber-bullying
- Breach of privacy
- Impersonating someone else
- Violent threats
- Child endangerment
- Hate speech
- Spam and scams
- Or other things
Then you can do so quite easily on a desktop device.
To report a YouTube channel, follow this guide:
- First, open YouTube and sign in to your account.
- Go to the channel page you want to report.
- Select their About section.
- Click the Flag icon on the right in the stats section.
- Here you can choose to report the channel art, profile picture, or user, as well as block the user from being able to comment on your videos.
- When you select report user, you will be presented a list of reasons, select the option that best fits with the issue you are reporting, and YouTube will check the issue and take action.
Please note: Abusing this feature can lead to your account and channel being terminated.
Additionally, if you no longer want to see the channel’s content, you can also block the YouTube channel from the about page.
How To Report a YouTube Channel On a Mobile
Unfortunately, there is no way to report a YouTube channel in the mobile app. This is the case for Android devices, iPhones, and iPads.
You can still report a YouTube channel on mobile, but you must do so in a browser like Chrome.
- Open YouTube.com in your preferred browser.
- Select the three dots icon in the top right.
- Check the desktop site option (or equivalent, depending on the browser).
Now you should be able to see YouTube as you would on a desktop device, and you can report a YouTube channel by visiting the about section on the channel that needs reporting.
You can follow the same steps when reporting a Youtube channel on a desktop device.
Alternatively, if you have access to a desktop device, you can report the channel there instead of trying it on mobile.
How To Report a YouTube Video
Reporting a YouTube video is just as easy as reporting a channel.
- First, make sure you are logged into your YouTube account.
- Open the video you want to report and click on the three dots icon.
- In the drop-down menu, select “Report.”
- Select the most applicable issue from the list of options and click next.
- Here you can add specific timestamps where violations may have appeared and add more information so that the review team makes a correct decision.
How To Report a Comment On YouTube
To report a comment on YouTube, you can follow the below steps:
- First, make sure you are logged into YouTube (you always need to be logged in to report things).
- Once logged in, head to the comment section containing the comment you wish to report.
- On the right of the comment, select the three dots menu and “Report.”
- From the options that appear, select the most applicable reason.
- Then click on the Report button to report the YouTube comment.
How To Report a Playlist On YouTube
Playlists have several useful features and benefits, but like most good things, people can abuse them, and they should be reported.
This is how to report a YouTube playlist.
- Log into your YouTube account if you are not already.
- Navigate to the playlist you want to report. Open the playlist page (you can often do this by selecting “view full playlist”).
- Select the three dots above the playlist description (or beneath the title if no description has been added).
- Next, click on “Report playlist.”
- Select “Submit” to then report that playlist.
How To Report a YouTube Thumbnail
Reporting a Youtube thumbnail follows a similar process to the ones outlined above; quite strangely, you can’t report a thumbnail directly on the channel page or video page of a channel.
You can only report thumbnails or titles that appear in your feed; this could be on the YouTube home page, in search results, in the suggested areas, etc.
To report a YouTube Thumbnail (or title), follow these steps.
- First, make sure you are logged into your YouTube account.
- Next, go to the thumbnail you want to report, but do not open it. Instead, select the three dots below the thumbnail and to the right of the title.
- From the menu that appears, select the “Report” option.
- Next, select the most applicable reason for reporting and click “Report.”
Final Thoughts On Reporting On YouTube
As you can see, YouTube has tried to make reporting content as easy and intuitive as possible.
While some things are not quite there yet, there are still ways to help point out troublemakers and content that needs to be removed.
I hope this guide helps you report content that should be removed but, better yet, not have to encounter such content in the first place.
Maybe one day, YouTube’s algorithms will be advanced enough to weed out spam, hate, etc., while still allowing freedom of speech and expression.
Fingers crossed.