[tontonius]

I guess the main critique here would be the question of authenticity. How can you prove that it was actually youtube and not some homebrew lookalike site he cooked up?

With that said, I'd like to add the obvious "BIG if true"

[buboard]

> "BIG if true"

I 'm sorry, but even if true, who cares about youtube comments?

[larkeith]

That it's YouTube is utterly irrelevant - if this is not an external factor (e.g. a clientside translation plugin, as suggested elsewhere) it sets a very dangerous, and likely illegal, precedent, even more notable from being a Google-owned site.

I strongly doubt that this is on YouTube's end, however - not because I trust Google not to alter comments if they believe it fits their interests, but rather because I believe they could do it in a more subtle manner (test backlash by only fixing typoes at first, for example, and probably hide major alterations from users).