YouTube is inviting people to test its community notes feature

Earlier in June, YouTube announced a new community notes feature, which is kind of similar to what we have on X (formerly Twitter). At the time, the video-sharing platform said that it would begin the testing of the new notes functionality. Now, YouTube has kicked off a pilot program and has started inviting people to test its community notes feature.

YouTube is sending invites to a pilot program for the new community notes feature

Some YouTube users have reported that YouTube has invited them to test the new community notes feature. The invite reads “We’re inviting you to pilot a new YouTube feature that allows you to add helpful notes to videos. These notes will provide additional information and create a better-informed YouTube community”.

YouTube already started testing the community notes feature with a “limited number of eligible contributors” in June. Now, the platform appears to be offering it more widely as of this week. Besides, the company has added a new section to its “Help” database, which has instructions on writing and submitting notes on videos.

YouTube is currently testing the notes feature in the US on mobile devices

YouTube is currently reportedly running the pilot program for the community notes feature in the US. The testing is only available in English for mobile devices in the region. The support page notes that for eligible users in the program, a new “Add note” button will appear under videos. Here, the pilot program users can write and submit a note for the video. The name of the YouTube user/channel who submitted the note will be left out if it is published.

The video-sharing platform suggests users write notes in their own words and don’t just copy & paste from sources. To give credibility to their notes, the users are also advised to cite sources that support the note’s claim. The new feature is expected to be available to the public in the coming weeks or months.

In related news, YouTube is currently also testing less-annoying Picture-in-Picture ads on the live streams. In addition, the platform is also testing a new sleep timer feature. Sadly, the highly useful sleep timer feature will initially be only available for YouTube Premium subscribers.