{"video_id":"zo_uoFI1WXM","title":"Fixing what YouTube couldn’t. - ThioJoe Spammer Purge","channel":"Linus Tech Tips","show":"Linus Tech Tips","published_at":"2022-05-05T14:53:29Z","duration_s":676,"segments":[{"start_s":0.48,"end_s":8.48,"text":"youtube has a problem spam from crypto scans to health","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":5.52,"end_s":13.28,"text":"supplements to free robux it just keeps getting worse with each passing day and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":10.559,"end_s":17.68,"text":"google clearly has no idea how to fix it all of that changes now the community","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":15.759,"end_s":23.199,"text":"restored the dislike counter and the community is coming to the rescue once","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":19.92,"end_s":25.76,"text":"again led by the unlikeliest of heroes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":23.199,"end_s":29.199,"text":"listen up guys because this is important thanks to glasswire for sponsoring this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":27.359,"end_s":32.64,"text":"video are you lagging out while gaming use glassware to see what apps are","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":31.039,"end_s":39.8,"text":"wasting your bandwidth and causing your games to lag get 25 off today using","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":35.04,"end_s":39.8,"text":"offer code Linus at the link down below","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":46.32,"end_s":53.039,"text":"youtube spam takes many forms but there are some patterns with most of them","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":50.399,"end_s":59.199,"text":"promoting crypto investment alt health products or perhaps most infamously paid","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":56.32,"end_s":62.399,"text":"live campsites which theoretically should make them pretty easy to block","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":61.6,"end_s":69.36,"text":"so why doesn't youtube bother the truth is they do and poking around","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":66.96,"end_s":73.6,"text":"in our desktop dashboard it appears to be working pretty well","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":71.119,"end_s":78.4,"text":"just about everything that is obviously spam is filtered out and very few false","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":76.32,"end_s":82.72,"text":"positives get caught up unless they're violating our blocked words list","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":80.56,"end_s":86.479,"text":"but there's an inconsistency here that i just can't wrap my head around","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":84.799,"end_s":91.119,"text":"on mobile there is perfectly reasonable stuff","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":88.64,"end_s":96.0,"text":"that's getting held for review and i just have no idea why and it's actually","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":93.84,"end_s":99.92,"text":"led to some really confusing situations with fellow creators like this incident","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":98.4,"end_s":105.759,"text":"where the return youtube dislike extension author's post wasn't showing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":102.479,"end_s":107.84,"text":"up even in our held comments list","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":105.759,"end_s":112.159,"text":"we've also seen unhappy viewers over the years who have accused us of censoring","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":109.68,"end_s":117.2,"text":"them in the comments when we're totally not we just never saw them this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":115.04,"end_s":122.719,"text":"unreliability combined with the lack of a dislike counter on comments means that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":119.759,"end_s":126.799,"text":"as the bots have improved our markers to identify them and root them out have","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":124.96,"end_s":131.76,"text":"gotten worse thanks youtube and here's one thing we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":129.599,"end_s":136.4,"text":"need to get out of the way guys don't mock the people who fall for these scams","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":134.16,"end_s":140.64,"text":"because shaming people only empowers the scammers more so if youtube's not going","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":138.72,"end_s":144.64,"text":"to address this what we need is consistent filtering with a way for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":142.48,"end_s":150.48,"text":"creators to keep on top of it or real people are going to get hurt","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":147.92,"end_s":154.959,"text":"now it's time to meet our hero what if i told you that you can actually convert a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":152.48,"end_s":160.72,"text":"dvd to a blu-ray disc take your big stack of cds and get a blue marker of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":157.76,"end_s":166.239,"text":"some kind theojo used to run the tech tips equivalent of how to basic and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":163.519,"end_s":170.959,"text":"those videos instructing people to run their coax cable through a cd for free","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":168.64,"end_s":174.48,"text":"cable tv or tape a battery to their Ethernet cable to triple their internet","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":173.12,"end_s":177.599,"text":"speed are still up if you want to go back and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":176.56,"end_s":182.159,"text":"watch them but mr joe seeing how many people were","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":180.4,"end_s":186.239,"text":"genuinely upset when they wasted their time trying to follow his guides","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":183.68,"end_s":191.2,"text":"realized that he had a power and what he really wanted to do was use","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":188.64,"end_s":195.92,"text":"that power for good so for years now he's actually been focused on uploading","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":193.2,"end_s":200.959,"text":"real tech tips and one of his best to date is an open source app that he","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":198.0,"end_s":206.239,"text":"created that will scan and remove spam comments from a youtube video or even an","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":203.68,"end_s":210.239,"text":"entire youtube channel how does it work it's dead simple in fact","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":208.4,"end_s":215.04,"text":"so dead simple that it is shocking that youtube hasn't bothered to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":212.4,"end_s":219.12,"text":"implement it yet in its original most basic form you would choose what you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":216.959,"end_s":222.48,"text":"want to scan enter the channel id of the spammer and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":220.64,"end_s":226.319,"text":"boom you get a readout of the comments that are about to be deleted","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":224.239,"end_s":230.959,"text":"just in case and with another keystroke you wipe your videos clean of that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":228.159,"end_s":236.319,"text":"spammer but mr joe didn't stop there he recently released an update with an auto","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":233.519,"end_s":241.76,"text":"smart mode that recognizes and selects comments based on some secret sauce that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":239.04,"end_s":246.879,"text":"waits how spammy a message is based on the username comment text and some other","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":244.799,"end_s":250.48,"text":"techniques like how many times that comment has been repeated in fact when","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":248.72,"end_s":255.12,"text":"you run the script it'll show you how many of each sample was found by each","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":253.04,"end_s":260.32,"text":"spammer you can then delete the messages and ban the accounts all at once now the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":258.16,"end_s":264.24,"text":"exact strings and patterns that the script searches for are obfuscated this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":262.8,"end_s":267.6,"text":"is to prevent spammers from easily developing a way around it so they're","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":266.08,"end_s":272.24,"text":"not something that you can tune and tweak on your own but if all else fails","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":270.32,"end_s":276.479,"text":"you can always do it manually as before there are options to scan user names","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":274.16,"end_s":280.24,"text":"comment text or both for criteria of your choosing so if your comment section","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":278.16,"end_s":284.96,"text":"was getting rated by real users for example you could select and remove the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":282.8,"end_s":289.68,"text":"offending comments with theo joe's tool then there's filter modes which filter","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":287.52,"end_s":294.0,"text":"special non-ascii characters from user names that are often used to impersonate","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":292.08,"end_s":299.28,"text":"content creators this is one that really blows me away that youtube hasn't done","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":295.68,"end_s":301.84,"text":"yet as well as nuke mode what this one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":299.28,"end_s":306.24,"text":"does is make it so that only numbers letters and spaces are allowed in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":303.84,"end_s":310.88,"text":"usernames now that's probably going to be a last resort for most people seeing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":308.24,"end_s":315.44,"text":"as emoji are popular and languages other than english exist but it is called nuke","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":313.36,"end_s":319.68,"text":"mode and it's colored all red for a reason i like how the little table flip","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":317.68,"end_s":324.08,"text":"kimoji uses characters that would actually be filtered out by this option","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":321.44,"end_s":328.88,"text":"it's a nice touch in theojo's experience the false positive rate though for the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":326.08,"end_s":333.039,"text":"smart auto mode is roughly zero which is why it's the default mode and the one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":330.72,"end_s":339.759,"text":"that i'm going to use right now okay youtube spammer purge 2.8.0 here we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":336.56,"end_s":341.68,"text":"go boys currently logged in user Linus","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":339.759,"end_s":346.24,"text":"tech tips channel id continues this user yes this is all configurable by the way","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":343.919,"end_s":350.08,"text":"all you got to do is go in and say hey i don't want to confirm which user i am","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":348.0,"end_s":354.16,"text":"every time little things like that scan recent videos for a channel","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":352.32,"end_s":358.24,"text":"scanning your own channel just hit enter enter the number of most recent well","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":355.6,"end_s":364.56,"text":"let's do two two three two total number of comments to scan 2980.","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":361.84,"end_s":368.8,"text":"this mode is a spammer's worst nightmare now theo joe did actually share with us","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":366.8,"end_s":374.639,"text":"the logic that it uses and it's pretty smart actually i i have very high hopes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":371.36,"end_s":376.24,"text":"for this oh there they are okay uh spam","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":374.639,"end_s":381.199,"text":"comments ready to display also save a log file yes please wow oh boy","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":379.44,"end_s":386.479,"text":"oh we got some good ones here ladies and gentlemen love me","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":383.28,"end_s":389.6,"text":"says only for fans 18 years old love me","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":386.479,"end_s":392.24,"text":"dot uno stormy i know lots of people","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":389.6,"end_s":396.56,"text":"real people who post that on my videos this should be self-explanatory do not","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":393.84,"end_s":403.12,"text":"go to any of these domains here like no not recommended this is one that drives","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":398.72,"end_s":404.319,"text":"me crazy when the spammers wanna","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":403.12,"end_s":409.759,"text":"something whatever these other characters are when they just copy uh uh","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":407.36,"end_s":415.28,"text":"top up voted comment it makes it actually kind of hard to tell sometimes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":411.6,"end_s":416.479,"text":"mw posted this youtube link 27 times how","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":415.28,"end_s":420.56,"text":"do you want to handle the matched comments above to exclude certain","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":418.319,"end_s":424.24,"text":"authors type exclude followed by a list of all the numbers in the sample list oh","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":422.319,"end_s":429.12,"text":"well that's easy to delete all of them type delete exactly see you later also","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":427.36,"end_s":432.319,"text":"ban the spammers yes now this is interesting it's checking to make sure","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":430.479,"end_s":436.56,"text":"the comments are gone which is an optional step to save time and API quota","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":435.12,"end_s":441.52,"text":"we'll talk about that a bit more later program complete press enter to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":439.12,"end_s":447.12,"text":"exit that is so cool which is a lot more than","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":445.12,"end_s":452.479,"text":"i can say for youtube's own mobile filters like i'm stoked but Linus what","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":450.4,"end_s":459.039,"text":"does this have to do with me we could use this tool to seriously cut down on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":455.199,"end_s":461.44,"text":"comment spam on youtube site wide and i","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":459.039,"end_s":465.84,"text":"don't mean we as in content creators though content creators should get","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":463.039,"end_s":471.36,"text":"involved i'm talking about you and me or like right now you can download this app","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":468.56,"end_s":475.52,"text":"and after a little bit of setup scan any video you want on youtube now you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":473.44,"end_s":479.759,"text":"obviously can't delete comments from someone else's channel but you can mass","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":478.0,"end_s":484.72,"text":"report them so if enough of these comments get reported by enough people","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":482.24,"end_s":488.879,"text":"they should be removed and they should give youtube's algorithm some clues as","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":487.12,"end_s":493.44,"text":"to how to identify and delete them automatically the idea is that if enough","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":491.28,"end_s":497.44,"text":"community members pitch in they can literally clean up the comment sections","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":495.36,"end_s":501.36,"text":"of their favorite creators with nothing but their keyboard","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":499.12,"end_s":505.759,"text":"and an ice cold beverage in an LTT water bottle from ltteststore.com","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":503.36,"end_s":509.84,"text":"so then here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna set up this script and by i mean","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":507.52,"end_s":513.68,"text":"Anthony hey thanks Anthony i'm gonna set up the script to run on a schedule as","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":511.759,"end_s":519.76,"text":"often as we can get away with now by default youtube limits each user to 10","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":516.719,"end_s":521.44,"text":"000 API requests per day that's","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":519.76,"end_s":527.279,"text":"not that much in the grand scheme of things but mr joe actually thought of this we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":525.2,"end_s":532.48,"text":"can take a page from the spammer's book and create an army of dummy accounts","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":530.08,"end_s":536.48,"text":"that we then grant moderator status to they can't outright delete comments but","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":534.48,"end_s":540.24,"text":"they can hold them for review if we run up against our own API limit this should","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":538.399,"end_s":545.36,"text":"help keep our comments section pretty clean that is at least for the first few","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":542.64,"end_s":550.32,"text":"days after a video is released making it this easy not to mention open source","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":548.16,"end_s":554.32,"text":"means that content creators across the youtube spectrum can spend less time","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":552.08,"end_s":559.2,"text":"pulling weeds while being more confident that they're keeping their audience safe","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":555.92,"end_s":560.959,"text":"it truly is a win-win and yet another","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":559.2,"end_s":566.16,"text":"example of the community coming to the rescue when youtube couldn't or","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":564.0,"end_s":571.2,"text":"wouldn't honestly i'm kind of leaning towards wouldn't because while i admire","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":568.959,"end_s":575.04,"text":"theojo's gumption here enough to give him this","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":572.08,"end_s":580.64,"text":"nft of a certificate of awesomeness here you go he's a self-admitted novice","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":577.6,"end_s":583.12,"text":"at this just one dude who wrote a simple","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":580.64,"end_s":587.04,"text":"script that happens to be more effective than google's filtering to be clear it's","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":584.959,"end_s":591.839,"text":"not perfect it's not going to prevent spam that is at least until it trains","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":589.519,"end_s":596.88,"text":"youtube's own filters and it is limited to those 10 000 requests per day","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":594.16,"end_s":600.399,"text":"but it could make spam take more effort which could reduce the amount of spam","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":598.88,"end_s":603.92,"text":"that's produced the only real reason i can think of that","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":602.08,"end_s":609.12,"text":"youtube wouldn't do this themselves is that it's computationally expensive but","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":606.56,"end_s":615.519,"text":"we can obviously run it on a desktop pc with no issues and our servers seem no","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":612.399,"end_s":615.519,"text":"worse for the wear so","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":615.68,"end_s":622.64,"text":"i don't know what to say other than that youtube either can't or won't and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":620.56,"end_s":625.519,"text":"only they can say which one it is speaking of servers by the way get","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":624.0,"end_s":629.279,"text":"subscribed because we've got some data recovery to do on one of our servers and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":627.44,"end_s":632.959,"text":"it's going to be a bit of a nail biter for now we'll have both the github page","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":630.8,"end_s":637.12,"text":"for this project and dojo's walkthrough on how to set it up linked for you guys","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":634.56,"end_s":640.64,"text":"down below thanks theo joe this video is brought to you by manscaped manscaped","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":639.04,"end_s":644.72,"text":"provides an all-in-one grooming kit that's got you covered from head to toe","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":642.64,"end_s":648.88,"text":"their performance package 4.0 features their awesome lawnmower 4.0 waterproof","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":646.88,"end_s":652.72,"text":"body trimmer their weed whacker ear and nose trimmer plus a whole lot of other","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":650.8,"end_s":657.68,"text":"goodies for a limited time you get all this plus two free gifts the shed travel","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":654.959,"end_s":663.76,"text":"bag and a pair of manscaped anti-chafing boxer briefs visit manscape.com tech or","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":661.04,"end_s":667.6,"text":"click the link down below for 20 off and free shipping thanks for watching guys","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":665.92,"end_s":670.48,"text":"go check out our video on restoring youtube's dislike button for another","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":669.12,"end_s":677.68,"text":"case where the community came to the rescue it's a little less straightforward than this one but i'm","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":674.16,"end_s":677.68,"text":"doing my part anyway","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0}],"full_text":"youtube has a problem spam from crypto scans to health supplements to free robux it just keeps getting worse with each passing day and google clearly has no idea how to fix it all of that changes now the community restored the dislike counter and the community is coming to the rescue once again led by the unlikeliest of heroes listen up guys because this is important thanks to glasswire for sponsoring this video are you lagging out while gaming use glassware to see what apps are wasting your bandwidth and causing your games to lag get 25 off today using offer code Linus at the link down below youtube spam takes many forms but there are some patterns with most of them promoting crypto investment alt health products or perhaps most infamously paid live campsites which theoretically should make them pretty easy to block so why doesn't youtube bother the truth is they do and poking around in our desktop dashboard it appears to be working pretty well just about everything that is obviously spam is filtered out and very few false positives get caught up unless they're violating our blocked words list but there's an inconsistency here that i just can't wrap my head around on mobile there is perfectly reasonable stuff that's getting held for review and i just have no idea why and it's actually led to some really confusing situations with fellow creators like this incident where the return youtube dislike extension author's post wasn't showing up even in our held comments list we've also seen unhappy viewers over the years who have accused us of censoring them in the comments when we're totally not we just never saw them this unreliability combined with the lack of a dislike counter on comments means that as the bots have improved our markers to identify them and root them out have gotten worse thanks youtube and here's one thing we need to get out of the way guys don't mock the people who fall for these scams because shaming people only empowers the scammers more so if youtube's not going to address this what we need is consistent filtering with a way for creators to keep on top of it or real people are going to get hurt now it's time to meet our hero what if i told you that you can actually convert a dvd to a blu-ray disc take your big stack of cds and get a blue marker of some kind theojo used to run the tech tips equivalent of how to basic and those videos instructing people to run their coax cable through a cd for free cable tv or tape a battery to their Ethernet cable to triple their internet speed are still up if you want to go back and watch them but mr joe seeing how many people were genuinely upset when they wasted their time trying to follow his guides realized that he had a power and what he really wanted to do was use that power for good so for years now he's actually been focused on uploading real tech tips and one of his best to date is an open source app that he created that will scan and remove spam comments from a youtube video or even an entire youtube channel how does it work it's dead simple in fact so dead simple that it is shocking that youtube hasn't bothered to implement it yet in its original most basic form you would choose what you want to scan enter the channel id of the spammer and boom you get a readout of the comments that are about to be deleted just in case and with another keystroke you wipe your videos clean of that spammer but mr joe didn't stop there he recently released an update with an auto smart mode that recognizes and selects comments based on some secret sauce that waits how spammy a message is based on the username comment text and some other techniques like how many times that comment has been repeated in fact when you run the script it'll show you how many of each sample was found by each spammer you can then delete the messages and ban the accounts all at once now the exact strings and patterns that the script searches for are obfuscated this is to prevent spammers from easily developing a way around it so they're not something that you can tune and tweak on your own but if all else fails you can always do it manually as before there are options to scan user names comment text or both for criteria of your choosing so if your comment section was getting rated by real users for example you could select and remove the offending comments with theo joe's tool then there's filter modes which filter special non-ascii characters from user names that are often used to impersonate content creators this is one that really blows me away that youtube hasn't done yet as well as nuke mode what this one does is make it so that only numbers letters and spaces are allowed in usernames now that's probably going to be a last resort for most people seeing as emoji are popular and languages other than english exist but it is called nuke mode and it's colored all red for a reason i like how the little table flip kimoji uses characters that would actually be filtered out by this option it's a nice touch in theojo's experience the false positive rate though for the smart auto mode is roughly zero which is why it's the default mode and the one that i'm going to use right now okay youtube spammer purge 2.8.0 here we go boys currently logged in user Linus tech tips channel id continues this user yes this is all configurable by the way all you got to do is go in and say hey i don't want to confirm which user i am every time little things like that scan recent videos for a channel scanning your own channel just hit enter enter the number of most recent well let's do two two three two total number of comments to scan 2980. this mode is a spammer's worst nightmare now theo joe did actually share with us the logic that it uses and it's pretty smart actually i i have very high hopes for this oh there they are okay uh spam comments ready to display also save a log file yes please wow oh boy oh we got some good ones here ladies and gentlemen love me says only for fans 18 years old love me dot uno stormy i know lots of people real people who post that on my videos this should be self-explanatory do not go to any of these domains here like no not recommended this is one that drives me crazy when the spammers wanna something whatever these other characters are when they just copy uh uh top up voted comment it makes it actually kind of hard to tell sometimes mw posted this youtube link 27 times how do you want to handle the matched comments above to exclude certain authors type exclude followed by a list of all the numbers in the sample list oh well that's easy to delete all of them type delete exactly see you later also ban the spammers yes now this is interesting it's checking to make sure the comments are gone which is an optional step to save time and API quota we'll talk about that a bit more later program complete press enter to exit that is so cool which is a lot more than i can say for youtube's own mobile filters like i'm stoked but Linus what does this have to do with me we could use this tool to seriously cut down on comment spam on youtube site wide and i don't mean we as in content creators though content creators should get involved i'm talking about you and me or like right now you can download this app and after a little bit of setup scan any video you want on youtube now you obviously can't delete comments from someone else's channel but you can mass report them so if enough of these comments get reported by enough people they should be removed and they should give youtube's algorithm some clues as to how to identify and delete them automatically the idea is that if enough community members pitch in they can literally clean up the comment sections of their favorite creators with nothing but their keyboard and an ice cold beverage in an LTT water bottle from ltteststore.com so then here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna set up this script and by i mean Anthony hey thanks Anthony i'm gonna set up the script to run on a schedule as often as we can get away with now by default youtube limits each user to 10 000 API requests per day that's not that much in the grand scheme of things but mr joe actually thought of this we can take a page from the spammer's book and create an army of dummy accounts that we then grant moderator status to they can't outright delete comments but they can hold them for review if we run up against our own API limit this should help keep our comments section pretty clean that is at least for the first few days after a video is released making it this easy not to mention open source means that content creators across the youtube spectrum can spend less time pulling weeds while being more confident that they're keeping their audience safe it truly is a win-win and yet another example of the community coming to the rescue when youtube couldn't or wouldn't honestly i'm kind of leaning towards wouldn't because while i admire theojo's gumption here enough to give him this nft of a certificate of awesomeness here you go he's a self-admitted novice at this just one dude who wrote a simple script that happens to be more effective than google's filtering to be clear it's not perfect it's not going to prevent spam that is at least until it trains youtube's own filters and it is limited to those 10 000 requests per day but it could make spam take more effort which could reduce the amount of spam that's produced the only real reason i can think of that youtube wouldn't do this themselves is that it's computationally expensive but we can obviously run it on a desktop pc with no issues and our servers seem no worse for the wear so i don't know what to say other than that youtube either can't or won't and only they can say which one it is speaking of servers by the way get subscribed because we've got some data recovery to do on one of our servers and it's going to be a bit of a nail biter for now we'll have both the github page for this project and dojo's walkthrough on how to set it up linked for you guys down below thanks theo joe this video is brought to you by manscaped manscaped provides an all-in-one grooming kit that's got you covered from head to toe their performance package 4.0 features their awesome lawnmower 4.0 waterproof body trimmer their weed whacker ear and nose trimmer plus a whole lot of other goodies for a limited time you get all this plus two free gifts the shed travel bag and a pair of manscaped anti-chafing boxer briefs visit manscape.com tech or click the link down below for 20 off and free shipping thanks for watching guys go check out our video on restoring youtube's dislike button for another case where the community came to the rescue it's a little less straightforward than this one but i'm doing my part anyway"}