How to Report Harassment on YouTube (Videos, Comments, Channels)

To report harassment on YouTube, open the video, comment, live chat message or channel, use its three-dot menu or report option, and choose harassment or bullying as the reason. Report each piece of abusive content separately, note the links and timestamps, and if a video reveals your personal information or shows you without consent, use YouTube’s separate privacy complaint process. If you’re threatened or in danger, call the police first.

YouTube harassment can come from a single commenter, a channel that makes you the subject of repeated videos, or a crowd sent your way by a larger creator. This guide covers how to report each type, what YouTube’s rules do and don’t cover, how to limit what reaches you, and when it’s time to involve the police or a lawyer.

What YouTube counts as harassment

YouTube’s Community Guidelines include a harassment and cyberbullying policy. In general terms, it prohibits content that targets an identifiable person with:

• prolonged insults or name-calling, especially based on attributes such as race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or religion,
• threats, or content that encourages others to harass or threaten someone,
• sharing someone’s private or identifying information, such as a home address or phone number (doxxing),
• sexualizing or degrading an identifiable person without their consent,
• content that mocks or targets someone repeatedly, including across several videos.

YouTube does allow criticism, commentary and debate, including harsh criticism of public figures, and it makes exceptions for some educational, documentary or news content. That’s why a video that is unflattering but factual may stay up, while one that mocks your appearance and posts your workplace should not. When you report, point to the specific behavior the policy bans, not just the fact that the content is hurtful.

Threats of violence, content that sexualizes minors, and impersonation are covered by separate YouTube policies, and you can report under those too.

Before you report: capture the evidence

Harassing content is often deleted or edited once the uploader realizes it’s been reported. A short record protects you if you later need to escalate to YouTube, the police or a lawyer.

1. Copy the link to each video, Short, comment and channel. For channels, save the channel URL as well as the handle, because handles can change.
2. Note the timestamp in the video where the harassment happens.
3. Take screenshots that show the content, the channel name and the date.
4. Keep a simple log: date, link, what was said, and when you reported it.

If watching the content is upsetting, ask a friend to do this for you. One exception applies to everything in this guide: if content sexualizes someone under 18, don’t screenshot, download or share it. Record the link, report it to YouTube, and report it to NCMEC’s CyberTipline.

How to report YouTube harassment, step by step

YouTube’s menus change from time to time, but the report option has stayed close to the content itself. The general routes are:

What’s harassing you	How to report it
A video or Short	Open the three-dot menu on the video (or the Short), choose Report, then select harassment or bullying and follow the prompts. You can usually add a timestamp and details.
A comment or reply	Open the three-dot menu next to the comment, choose Report, and pick the reason that fits, such as harassment or bullying.
A live chat message	Use the menu next to the message in the chat to report it. Creators and moderators can also remove it or put the user in a timeout.
A whole channel	Go to the channel page and use its report option to report the user. This is useful when the harassment spans many videos or comments, or the channel exists mainly to target you.
A video showing you or your personal information	File a privacy complaint through YouTube’s Help Center rather than a standard report. Our guide on removing a YouTube video about you walks through it.

In the details box, be brief and specific. For example:

This video targets me by name and repeatedly mocks my appearance (from 2:10 to 4:45). At 5:30 the creator shows my street and encourages viewers to “pay me a visit.” I have not consented to any of this. The same channel has posted three other videos about me, linked below.

Linking the related videos shows YouTube a pattern, which matters because the policy looks at repeated targeting across content, not only a single clip.

Harassment spread across many videos or channels

Sometimes the harassment isn’t one video but a campaign: a creator makes you a recurring topic, or viewers from a bigger channel flood your comments. In that situation:

• Report the channel as well as the individual videos, so the reviewer sees the full pattern.
• Report comments that encourage others to target you. Inciting harassment is itself a policy breach.
• If new accounts keep appearing, report each one and note in your report that it appears to be the same person evading enforcement.
• Look at other platforms too. Campaigns that start on YouTube often spill onto social media. Our guide on what to do about online harassment covers the wider steps.

Tools to limit harassment on your own channel

If you’re a creator, you don’t have to wait for YouTube to act. YouTube Studio gives you several moderation tools, and using them early limits how much abuse you and your audience see.

• Hold comments for review. You can hold potentially inappropriate comments, or all comments, for your approval before they appear.
• Blocked words. Add names, slurs or phrases the harasser uses so comments containing them are held.
• Hide a user from your channel. Their comments and live chat messages stop appearing for other viewers.
• Add moderators. A trusted person can review and remove comments so you don’t have to read them all.
• Live chat controls. Options such as slow mode, subscriber-only chat and timeouts help during livestreams.
• Turn off comments on specific videos that attract abuse.

Separately, review your own privacy. Check your older videos for anything that shows your home, car, children’s school or daily routine, and consider making them private or unlisted. If your address or phone number has already been posted, follow our guide on what to do if you’ve been doxxed.

A worked example

This is an illustrative scenario, not a real client.

A cooking creator with a small channel criticizes another creator’s recipe. The second creator responds with a series of videos mocking her voice and weight, and one shows a screenshot of her neighborhood from an old vlog. His viewers start leaving abusive comments on her videos.

1. Evidence. Her partner lists the links and timestamps for each video, screenshots the worst comments, and saves the channel URL.
2. Reports. She reports each video for harassment, citing the timestamps, and reports the channel, explaining it has posted several videos targeting her. She files a privacy complaint about the video that shows her neighborhood.
3. Moderation. She holds all comments for review for two weeks, adds the recurring insults to her blocked words list, hides the most abusive accounts from her channel, and asks a friend to moderate.
4. Privacy. She makes the old vlog private.
5. Escalation plan. She decides that if any comment mentions coming to her home, she’ll go to the police with her log.

The privacy complaint leads to the neighborhood video coming down, and some of the harassment videos are removed while others stay up as commentary. The comment flood slows once it stops appearing publicly. Results in any real case depend on how YouTube applies its policies to the specific content.

If YouTube doesn’t remove it

YouTube won’t remove everything that’s hurtful, and review outcomes can feel inconsistent. Options when a report doesn’t work:

• Report again under a more specific rule. Personal information, threats and sexualized content are often judged more clearly than general insults.
• Use the privacy complaint route if the video shows your face, full name or other identifying details without consent.
• Consider legal routes for false statements. If the videos make false factual claims that damage your reputation, talk to a lawyer about defamation. YouTube also accepts legal removal requests.
• Ask a court for protection if the harassment is persistent and frightening. Our guide to restraining orders for online harassment explains the general process.
• Deal with search results. Videos can rank in Google for your name. Our social media reputation management team can help with reporting, monitoring and building accurate results, and we’ll tell you honestly what’s likely to be removable.

What not to do

• Don’t make a response video in anger. It usually feeds the algorithm and the harasser’s audience.
• Don’t ask your viewers to go after the other channel. Encouraging a pile-on can break the same harassment rules and weaken your reports.
• Don’t delete your own comments section before recording it. Screenshot first, then hide or remove.
• Don’t reply to threats. Save them and report them.
• Don’t read everything alone. Moderators and friends can filter the abuse for you.

Frequently asked questions

Does YouTube tell someone who reported them?

YouTube doesn’t tell creators who flagged their content under its Community Guidelines. Privacy complaints and legal requests, such as copyright notices, can involve sharing some of your details, so check what each form says before you submit it.

How long does YouTube take to review a harassment report?

It varies. Some reports are reviewed quickly and others take longer, and YouTube doesn’t always notify you of the outcome. Keep your log and report again under a more specific policy if the content stays up and clearly breaks the rules.

Can I report harassment on YouTube if I don't have a channel?

You generally need to be signed in to a Google account to report content, but you don’t need your own channel. Privacy complaints are filed through YouTube’s Help Center.

Can YouTube harassment be a crime?

It can be, if it includes threats, stalking, extortion, or sexual content involving minors, among other things. Laws vary by state, so talk to the police or a lawyer about your situation.