Google has been making some big changes to YouTube recently. Some hate it, some love it. A huge one that is sure to get mixed reviews is their newest policy or wanting you to use your real name when posting comments to YouTube. Their theory? If you are held more accountable for your posts and comments you are less likely to act like a 13 year old kid who has slammed down a case of Red Bull when making comments. An interesting theory, as Google has had some interesting privacy policy changes in the last year or so, anyway.
Regardless if you are ready for it or not, it’s here. If you haven’t tried commenting recently, you will get a nice little prompt when you try to next:
Here you will be asked to confirm linking your real name to your YouTube account. There’s only little snafu to their big master plans though: You can still opt out of using your real name! It isn’t even very hard. You just say you don’t want to use your real name, and it will ask if you are sure. Tell it twice and then give it a reason why not. You can use many different ones and no, “I have nothing better to do than spam and link on YouTube” is nowhere to be found and sadly you can’t select “Because I am a hyperactive spastic internet troll,” because I tried. Twice. This feature was primarily meant for those who want to remain anonymous for reasons such as protesting, for business profiles, etc.
In addition to having your real name now on display, this will add a link to your YouTube profile for your Google Plus profile as well. Really, it’s not that big of a surprise as Google already allows you to use and link your Google and Google Plus profiles across multiple platforms and sites. But for all we know it could be trying to boost Google Plus a bit more as a lot of the initial hype was died down about it. And with Google Fiber beginning to roll out, who knows how this could all link together.
Do you think that this new feature or step will help eliminate trolling and spamming on the comments? Or do you think this is just another move for integrating more with Google Plus and possible features of Google Fiber? Let us know in the comments!
