YouTube turns to the human touch as it nurtures the next generation of stars

Video service is augmenting new tech with real people to help guide the successors to Zoella and PewDiePie

YouTube wants to provide more of a "human touch" for its community of video creators, while also doing more to help them tackle trolls and avoid exploitative deals with multi-channel networks. And while its plans to do so inevitably include changes to its technology, they involve real-life humans as well. As YouTube's VP of operations Sebastien Missoffe puts it, it's a necessary part of being "a digital media company of the 21st century".

"We need to balance the great technology we have and bring this human access for every single creator," Missoffe says. "They can reach a human being at YouTube." So as it consolidates its creator tools in a revamped online "hub" and improves its comment-moderation and copyright tools, it is providing more direct access to its support staff too, with four tiers of support based on how many subscribers a creator has.