Sony-Owned Crunchyroll Disables Comments, User Reviews In Order To “Reduce Harmful Content” And “Prevent Misinformation”
In a purported attempt to foster “a safer, more respectful, and higher-quality environment”, Crunchyroll has reportedly disabled the ability for users to leave comments, including reviews, across the entirety of their anime streaming platform.
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This change was first brought to public attention courtesy of a July 7th post made by Reddit user /u/Taoutes to the unofficial /r/Crunchyroll subreddit.
“Finished an episode of a show and made a comment, switched apps and then come back to find the comments section gone,” they relayed to their fellow platform users. “Thought it was a bug, but apparently they’ve decided to suddenly blanket wipe everything.”
In support of their claim, /u/Taoutes then shared a trio of screenshots showing a purported conversation they had with a member of Crunchyroll’s support team in the immediate aftermath of their above discovery.
Therein, the support member can be seen confirming the change, explaining to the /u/Taoutes, “To maintain a safe, respectful, and high-quality environment for our community, we have decided to remove all existing comments and disable the ability to comment on our platforms, including comments on new articles.”
“This change helps us reduce harmful content, prevent misinformation, and improve overall user experience,” the support team member further detailed. “This [is] for every Crunchyroll customer.”
Met with disappointment from /u/Taoutes and their hope that “the decision is reversed soon”, the support team member ultimately asserted, “This decision was made to ensure a safer, more respectful, and higher-quality environment for all our users”.
Following the public reveal of this change, Crunchyroll updated their official Support & Customer Service page to add a brief section detailing, “At Crunchyroll, we prioritize creating a safe and respectful community environment. To maintain this standard, we are removing all existing user-generated content, including comments, across all our platforms and experiences.”
To the surprise of few, this change has not gone over well with Crunchyroll’s userbase, many of whom – if the replies to /u/Taoutes’ thread are any indication – enjoyed the communal aspect previously offered by comments and reviews.
As such, unhappy fans have begun to send complaints directly to Crunchyroll themselves via their publicly available support lines.
However, given how quickly and resolutely this change has been enshrined as a matter of official policy, it presently seems unlikely that the platform (or their parent company Sony) will actually listen to their users and roll it back.
Between this disabling of comments, the constant butchering of subtitles, and its ever-buggy player, at this point, one has to admit: While it’s convenient for watching anime, the overall Crunchyroll experience is unpleasant and anti-consumer through and through.
And sadly, it’s probably only going to get worse.
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