The Litter Tray publication
Notes for YouTube creators on moderating comments: what YouTube's own tools do, and what The Litter Tray adds.
RSS feedThe Held tab in YouTube Studio is where held comments wait, including the ones labelled Likely spam. You can approve a comment, remove it or hide the user. It doesn't keep a history of the viewer, a note of why a comment was held, or any temporary standing.
A moderation tool needs a pause button you can find. You should be able to stop automatic holds without disconnecting your channel.
Once you hide a user from your channel, the Comments page in YouTube Studio stops listing what they wrote. An archive is for the evidence that page no longer shows.
YouTube's blocked words catch comments that contain, or closely match, a word on your list. They don't read meaning, remember the account, or deal with the next comment that says it differently.
A held comment is hidden from other viewers without being deleted. The Litter Tray and YouTube Studio use the same held status.
YouTube has no way to put a commenter on probation for a while. The Litter Tray adds one: a reversible step between everyday moderation and a ban.
The Free Plan isn't a trial with a clock on it. You get every feature in smaller amounts, with 50 AI credits a month. The one condition is that someone keeps turning up.
Published by The Litter Tray in the Isle of Man. Every article names its author and shows when it was published and when it was last changed. We publish an article on the day it's written and never backdate one. Questions or corrections: office@thelittertray.app. When we correct something that matters, the article says what changed.
