A Comparative Analysis of Common YouTube Comment Spam Filtering Techniques

Abstract

Ever since its development in 2005, YouTube has been providing a vital social media platform for video sharing. Unfortunately, YouTube users may have malicious intentions, such as disseminating malware and profanity. One way to do so is using the comment field for this purpose. Although YouTube provides a built-in tool for spam control, yet it is insufficient for combating malicious and spam contents within the comments. In this paper, a comparative study of the common filtering techniques used for YouTube comment spam is conducted. The study deploys datasets extracted from YouTube using its Data API. According to the obtained results, high filtering accuracy (more than 98%) can be achieved with low-complexity algorithms, implying the possibility of developing a suitable browser extension to alleviate comment spam on YouTube in future.