YouTube Adds Audio Preview to Comments Section, xkcd Fans Laugh Out Loud

YouTube comments can be a lot of things they shouldn’t be. Those who frequent Google’s video sharing site are often responsible for harsh, offensive, tangential or just downright irrelevant comments. The powers that be over at GooTube have implemented a feature that will read back users comments before they post.

The Audio Preview button might ring a few bells with anybody who’s a regular visitor to Randall Monroe’s xkcd.com. In a recent comic, Monroe depicts a girl writing a virus that would read YouTubers’ comments back to them before posting, in the hopes that those posting inane or seemingly pointless remarks would realize they were morons.

When posting a comment, in addition to the Post Comment and Discard buttons, you’ll also see an Audio Preview button that will have a speech synth read your post back to you. While it’s not all that exciting (no emotion or expression more than likely takes the fun out of calling someone a tool), it’s nice to see the nice people at YouTube have a sense of humour. Either that or they too are sick of the lamer comments that go around.

All jokes aside, we’re fairly sure this will increase the amount of spam in the comments section, at least for the first couple of weeks (that is, if YouTube plans on keeping it). Anywhere there’s a speech synth, you can expect to see a sizeable group of kids typing in as many dirty words as they can to see what they can “make the dude say.”

Naturally XKCD fans are pleased about the addition. Click here for the xkcd blag. Click here for the original comic.