YouTube is changing how users identify themselves, forcing unique handles onto us. This is standard practice for most social media platforms – but not for YouTube.
Users will soon be known as @InsertNameHere, across both channels and Shorts. Please, please, pick a sensible username.
Don’t fly off the handle
Channel names won’t be disappearing, but the creators behind them will be unique handles. It’s likely that the change was brought in to crack down on the number of impersonator accounts on the platform.
“We want to ensure creators can craft an identity as unique as their content while giving viewers the confidence that they are interacting with their favourite creators,” says YouTube in its blog.
Choosing a name is going to be difficult. Starting this week, YouTube will be giving users a “turn” to choose their unique handle, which leads us to believe YouTube is doing this in waves. Creators big enough to have a personalised URL will automatically have their handles reserved. The rest of us will be scrambling to pick any name that isn’t “xXSn1p3Rk1Ll3rXx”.
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Eventually, we’ll get our turn to choose a username. YouTube says it’ll notify you via email and YouTube Studio when your turn to choose a handle comes. You can also visit youtube.com/handle to choose one.
“If you don’t choose one by November 14th, we will begin assigning handles automatically based on your channel name,” says YouTube.
You’ll also be able to change the handle if you don’t like the one they’ve picked for you.
YouTube says accounts will roll out “turns” based on the channel’s ‘presence’, subscriber count, and the channel’s active use time. Meaning the majority of us, smaller accounts, are at the back of the line to get our handles. YouTube hasn’t made it clear whether these handles are permanent or not.
announcing YouTube handles: a unique identifier to help people more easily discover & connect with you & your channel.
your existing channel URLs, names, etc will continue to work & we’ll notify you when you can choose your handle.
subscribe for updates➡️https://t.co/twEEoqizNq pic.twitter.com/M80RWMa5Bz
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) October 10, 2022
Source: The Verge