YouTube is looking to add a more interactive social feature to its platform, according to a new note on its support page. This week, some users over the age of 18 in Ireland and Poland were given the ability to share videos with a direct messaging feature on YouTube.
“We’re experimenting with a new feature that makes it easy for you to share videos you love (long-form, Shorts and live streams) and have conversations about them directly on the YouTube mobile app,” the support page says. YouTube notes that the direct messages will be scanned to be sure that content follows Community Guidelines, and that flagged content will be reviewed.
YouTube had a direct messaging feature in 2017, allowing users to chat, share video clips, and start group messages, both within the app and on the YouTube website. The ability to direct message was removed in 2019 in an effort to encourage users to engage with each other in the comment sections of videos.
When the feature was removed, Team YouTube shared this message with users: “Two years ago, we launched a feature to enable you to share videos via direct messages on YouTube. Since then, we’ve also focused on public conversations with updates to comments, posts, and stories. We’re constantly reevaluating our priorities and have decided to discontinue YouTube’s native direct messaging feature while we focus on improving public conversations.”
Users have apparently been asking for the platform to bring messages back, with YouTube sharing that “this has been a top feature request.” Messaging directly through YouTube won’t take the place of sharing videos elsewhere. A note on the support page says that users can continue sharing videos on the same apps they already use, while testing out the new feature in the YouTube app.