YouTube Live borrowed one of Twitch’s best features and improved raids

YouTube implemented Live Redirects a few years back as a method for creators to hold live streams that ended by directing viewers to another video on their own channel for premiere events, such as BTS engaging fans before revealing a new music video. It has now updated Live Redirects so that when a live streamer goes down, their audience is redirected to another Livestream. One of the first large events to take advantage of the new addition will be the premiere launch event for the film Top Gun: Maverick on Wednesday.

This is referred to as a raid on Twitch. On the one hand, it’s a good tool to help build audiences and locate new material, but it’s also been used as a conduit for harassment on the site, with “hate raids” targeting marginalized streamers with abuse from hundreds of users at a time.

YouTube has definitely taken note of the difficulties that Twitch has struggled to address, and is launching Live Redirects with options that could make bot-fueled abuse less of a concern for streamers.

On Twitch, channels are set to accept raids from anybody by default, and while users can adjust this setting to only allow raids from “friends, teammates, and followed channels,” many do not. However, YouTube Live Redirects can only point to channels that subscribe to the streamer or have expressly added that channel to a permitted list from the start. Furthermore, only channels with over 1,000 followers and no active community guideline strikes are eligible to send a Live Redirect.

We’ll be able to observe how broadcasters use the functionality now that it’s live, but including default settings that give streamers one less thing to worry about should be a good start. YouTube debuted Live Redirects in a March video, along with many other new capabilities that are on the way, as it tries to persuade creators to use it instead of competitors like Twitch, Facebook, or TikTok.