YouTube has recently made its Profile cards feature available to the general public. Profile cards, which show the comment history of users, have previously been tested among select users since September. YouTube intends for the feature to enable users to “explore comments, build connections with others, and contribute to a more welcoming YouTube overall.”
How does ProfileCards work? TechCrunch explains:
To use Profile cards, you’ll just tap on the profile picture of anyone who’s commenting to view their card. Here, information like their name, profile photo, subscriptions, subscriber counts, and recent comments will appear in a pop-up card. All this information is publicly available on YouTube, but the Profile card consolidates it in one place.
To start following a commenter on YouTube, just click the red “Subscribe” link on their Profile card. It’s worth mentioning that Profile cards do not offer an entire history of a users comments across channels: each card will simply display the comments of that user on the particular channel where the card appears.
YouTube has primarily promoted the feature as a community-building, connection-fostering tool – but it could also help identify trolls more easily. Sarah Perez of TechCrunch remarks:
Being able to see the commenter’s history on the channel can help creators or moderators make more informed decisions about whether future comments from the same users should be hidden, or if the user is trustworthy enough to earn a spot on the ‘approved users’ list, for example.
Currently, the feature is only available to Android users, but YouTube plans to bring it to other devices in the future.