A YouTube Community post, image or poll is targeting you? Report the post itself, pick the harassment reason, capture evidence, and know what happens next.
If a YouTube Community post is harassing you, open the post, click More in the top-right corner, choose Report and select harassment as the reason. Report harmful comments under it too. Screenshot everything first. If it exposes your image or personal details, also use YouTube's privacy complaint process.
SummaryA YouTube channel has posted about you in its Community tab, the posts section creators use for text, images and polls. Maybe it is a poll asking viewers to rate you, an image with your face and a mocking caption, or a text post telling followers where to find you. The comments underneath can be worse than the post. Posts are easy to overlook because most YouTube guides are about videos. This guide covers how to report the post itself, which reason fits, how posts differ from videos in YouTube's process, and when a privacy complaint is the better route. For harassing videos, see our guide to removing a YouTube video harassing you.
Last checked: 9 November 2026.
If a YouTube Community post is harassing you, open the post, click More in the top-right corner, choose Report and select harassment as the reason. Report harmful comments under it too. Screenshot everything first. If it exposes your image or personal details, also use YouTube's privacy complaint process.
YouTube's Community Guidelines strike basics page says its policies apply to all types of content, including unlisted and private content, comments, links, posts and thumbnails. YouTube's Harassment and cyberbullying policies say it does not allow content that targets someone with prolonged insults or slurs based on their physical traits or other protected attributes, threats, or doxxing. They also cover content that shares, threatens to share, or encourages others to share someone's non-public personal information, and content meant to shame, deceive or insult a minor.
So a post, image or poll aimed at you is judged by the same harassment rules as a video. What differs is how you report it and what you can track afterwards.
| Question | Community post, image or poll | Video or Short |
|---|---|---|
| Where to tap Report | More in the top-right corner of the post, then Report | More below the video, or More in the bottom-right corner of a Short, then Report |
| Reason to choose | The harassment or bullying option that best fits | The same |
| Tracking your report | YouTube's help page describes Report history for videos only | Report history shows the status of videos you reported |
| What a confirmed breach means for the channel | Community Guidelines apply to posts, so a removal can lead to a warning or strike | Same strike system |
| Comments underneath | Report each harmful comment from its own More menu | Same |
| Privacy route | Privacy complaint if you are uniquely identifiable | Same |
Removed posts vanish, and channels sometimes delete posts once they get attention. Spend a few minutes on a record first. Our guide to collecting evidence before reporting harassment has a simple log.
YouTube's page on reporting inappropriate content gives the steps under Report a Community Post:
The same page says reporting is anonymous, so other users cannot tell who made the report, and that reported content is not automatically taken down but is reviewed against the Community Guidelines. For videos, YouTube adds that if its review team does not find a violation, no amount of reporting will change that. Treat posts the same way: one accurate report per post works better than many reports from friends.
Harassing comments under the post are separate content. Next to each comment, click More, then Report, and choose the reason. If you are a creator and the comments are on your own channel, YouTube lets you hide that user's comments from your channel after reporting.
To report the channel itself, open the channel page, click more in the description, then Report user, and choose the option that fits. YouTube notes that when you report a channel it does not review the channel's videos, so report the specific posts and videos too. Its harassment policy says that if you find many videos or comments to report, you can report the channel.
Knowing the strike path helps you set expectations. YouTube's strike basics page says that when content breaks the Community Guidelines, the first violation is typically only a warning, and the creator can take an optional policy training so the warning expires after 90 days. If the channel breaks the same policy within that window, the warning may not expire and the channel may get a strike. YouTube says the creator is told by email what was removed, which policy it broke, and what they can do next. It also says a single case of severe abuse can lead to channel termination without warning.
In practice, a first harassing post that is removed may only lead to a warning. A pattern of posts aimed at you is what moves a channel towards strikes, which is another reason to report each post rather than only the worst one.
If the post shows your face, your full name, your home or school, or other details that identify you, YouTube's Privacy Complaint Process may be the stronger route. YouTube says it encourages people to let it know if content violates their privacy or sense of safety, including if they were recorded without their knowledge, and that you must be uniquely identifiable in the content. The strike basics page says removals after a first-party privacy complaint do not give the channel a strike, so this route is about getting the content down rather than penalising the channel.
If a post includes specific threats against you and you feel unsafe, YouTube's harassment policy says to report it directly to your local law enforcement agency.
YouTube decides whether a post breaks its rules and whether the channel gets a warning or a strike. Its How YouTube Works policy overview says creators are notified when their videos are removed for policy violations and can appeal, and the strike basics page covers appeals for other content, so a removed post may come back if the creator wins an appeal. Some posts will be judged as criticism, especially about public figures. If a report is rejected, see what to do when a report is not removed.
Help makes sense when a channel keeps posting about you, when the posts link to your other accounts or reveal where you live or work, when followers are moving the harassment to other apps, or when reports keep failing. Keeping the record straight across posts, comments, and privacy complaints is a lot to manage alone.
AwareXone handles harassment and post removal through YouTube's official report and privacy tools only. We map the posts and comments, choose the right route for each, and track the results. We never ask for your password or codes and cannot promise a removal. See our social media content removal page and how we work on our trust page.
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