Moderating your live chat lets you interact with your audience and curate your Livestream experience in a way that works for you. YouTube gives you the tools you need to keep yourself and your viewers safe.
How to Moderate Live Chat on YouTube
Before your live chat
Get ready for your live chat session by setting up these moderation tools. Some of these tools can be used during and after your live stream too.
Subscribers-only live chatIf eligible, you can make live chat only available to your subscribers, and you can specify how long viewers need to be subscribed. This setting can be changed before and during your live stream or Premiere.
When you turn on subscribers-only chat, your audience will be notified that it’s turned on and how long they need to be subscribed to send messages.
Slow mode and subscribers-only chat can be turned on at the same time. Members-only chat and subscribers-only chat can’t be turned on at the same time.
To turn on subscribers-only chat:
- Go to Live Control Room.
- From your live stream, click Edit.
- Click Live chat.
- Under “Who can send a message,” select Subscribers.
- Optional: Choose how long viewers need to be subscribed before they can send live chat messages.
- Click Save.
Members-only live chat
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- At the top right, click CREATE
Go live.
- From the left, click Stream.
- Create a stream:
- To copy a previous stream: Select a previous stream and click Reuse settings.
- To create a new stream: Enter your stream's info and click Create stream.
- From the top right, click Edit.
- Under "Live chat," select Enable members-only chat.
- Click Save.
Live commentary Mode
You can set up your live chat to only allow approved users as live chat participants during a live stream session. Only users you select may send live chat messages, other viewers may view these messages alongside your live stream or premiere
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- At the top right, click CREATE
Go live.
- Under Customization Check the Live chat box to enable Live Chat.
- Select ‘Live commentary’ to enable. (You will have the option to update the ‘Approved Users’ list in community settings).
- Optional: Add channel URLs to the approved users list. Note: if no channels are in your ‘Approved Users’ list, your channel will be the only approved user to use live chat.
- Click Next to save.
Assign moderators
Everyone who participates in a live chat can report or block another person. Moderators can:
- Delete messages. Deleting is a way for you to remove any inappropriate or potentially abusive or offensive content. When you delete a message, it’s permanently removed from the live chat and its replay.
- Put participants in time out. Time outs allow you to temporarily prevent someone from sending messages in live chat. When you put someone in time out, they won’t be able to send messages for 5 minutes.
- Hide people from the channel. Hiding is often reserved for participants who ignore guidelines and warnings, and repeatedly send inappropriate messages. When you hide someone from the channel, their chat messages and comments will no longer be visible to other viewers. YouTube doesn't notify the person that you've hidden them.
- Open YouTube Studio.
- From the left, click Settings
Community.
- From the Automated Filters tab, click in the “Moderators” box.
- Type the name of the user you want to make a moderator.
- Click Save.
Select menu
Block messages containing certain words
- Open YouTube Studio.
- From the left, click Settings
Community.
- From the Automated Filters tab
“Blocked words,” enter a list of blocked words. Messages containing any of these words will be blocked from your live chat.
- Click Save.
Hold potentially inappropriate live chat messages for review
- Go to YouTube Studio.
- From the left, tap Settings
Community
Defaults.
- Under “Messages in your live chat,” check or uncheck Hold potentially inappropriate chat messages for review.
- If you select SHOW: chat messages are displayed in the chat stream at the original time they were entered.
- If you select HIDE: chat messages remain hidden from viewers.
- If you take no action: chat messages remain hidden from viewers.
Slow mode
- Create a live stream.
- Click Edit.
- Click Customization.
- Under "Message delay," check Slow mode. Enter how long you want participants to wait between sending messages.
Turn Live chat on or off
You can turn Live chat on or off at any time, even after the event has started. You can not turn off Live chat on Premieres.
From the top right, click Edit Live Chat
Enable live chat.
During your live chat
Moderate messages & viewers from the live chat feed
- Delete the message.
- Place the user in time out.
- Hide the user from the chat message feed or comments section on your channel.
Tip: Moderators can learn about a live chat participant by going directly to their channel.
- On computer: Hover over a message, click More
, and then Go to channel.
- On mobile: Tap a message, and then Go to channel.
Hide or unhide a viewer from live chat
- From the live chat feed, find a message from the viewer that you want to hide.
- Next to the message, click More
Hide user.
- Open YouTube Studio.
- From the left, click Settings
Community.
- From the Automated Filters tab
“Hidden users,” type the name of the viewer you want to hide.
- To unhide a viewer, click the X next to their name. They can now leave comments and live chat messages on your channel.
- Click Save.
After your live chat
Live chat replay
- Go to youtube.com/my_videos.
- Click the Live tab.
- Select a video.
- Click the More options tab.
- Deselect the box next to "Allow Live chat replay."
View or delete your Live chat history
- Go to History.
- On the right of the page, click Live chat.
- Scroll down and find the live chat message. To delete it, hover over it and click X.