Ever since Twitter jumped into the mainstream social media sphere, hashtags have become a common part of online conversations with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google+ also adopting them.
Yet another Google-owned platform, this time YouTube, has now added support for hashtags that will start showing up for users on top of a video’s title and in the description, on both Web and mobile. Hashtags will be visible on top of only the videos in which the uploader has added them. According to Google, this feature is not currently available on iOS.
The feature is being rolled out to Android users in a staged manner, and was first spotted by Android Police. It spotted a support page by Google that details the rules behind use of this new feature.
The support page notes that YouTube will prohibit creators from adding misleading tags, and those meant to harass or humiliate an individual or a group. The hashtags aimed to promote violence or hatred and anything sexual or explicit are also being prohibited on the platform. YouTube says it will pull down videos that violate these policies.
At the time of writing, we could see hashtags being added to select videos on both Android as well as the web. The feature seems to be selectively added to the work of celebrities and music artists.
As for adding hashtags in a video, YouTube uploaders can simply the phrase preceded by the ‘#’ sign in the video title or description. In both places, hashtags will be hyperlinked automatically. And, when there are no hashtags in the title, the first three in the description will be shown on top, by default.