Policing comments in a mostly anonymous system is almost impossible, so Google tried to fix things.
YouTube is an amazing platform where anyone with a camera and an internet connection can publish videos for the entire world to see for free. From the absolute novice to the professional production studio, YouTube is an invaluable resource for getting video to your users. More than that, though, it's a platform where viewers can communicate thoughts back to the content creators instantly. The comments section of every YouTube video is a place where feedback, suggestions, requests, and sometimes even contests happen. As you are no doubt aware, mid all of this back and forth between content creators and users is a bottomless pit of vile, nasty, and often horrifically vulgar communication. Depending on what video you are watching, terrible YouTube comments can feel like a sport where the goal is to be the most awful human being you can possibly imagine. YouTube offered basic comment policing tools, but since anyone could create an anonymous YouTube account in seconds it often felt like more damage was done by demonstrating a willingness to give these monsters some attention.
Something needed to be done for a long, long time, and back in November 2013 Google rolled out their plan. YouTube would become integrated with your Google+ account, and the comments section of every YouTube video would exist as an extension of Google's social network. What happened next was uniquely violent and strangely unifying, but ultimately lead to the comments system we have across Google+ and YouTube today.
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