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Discord has officially begun testing YouTube integration with the new ‘Watch Together’ feature, which lets members watch videos together in voice channels.
The feature is still in its early, experimental stages, and currently is only available in a very limited number of Discord servers, but The Verge (opens in new tab) reports that testing will broaden over the coming weeks, with a full launch for all users in the works for October.
Google, YouTube’s parent company, recently undertook legal action to shut down a pair of high-profile third-party music bots, Rythm and Groovy, which together were installed on 36 million Discord servers. At the time, Rythm’s creator said they expected the crackdown to eventually shutter every music bot available on the platform. According to The Verge, a similar feature was briefly tested late last year, and Discord is now repurposing it as the Watch Together feature specifically because Google is so aggressively shutting down music bots.
If you want to check out Discord’s YouTube integration test, you can do so by heading to the official Game Labs server (opens in new tab), where you can join a voice channel, click the activity launcher, and pick ‘Watch Together’ to form a party. From there you can create a playlist of YouTube videos by using the feature’s search bar or pasting links to videos directly, and you can even share the virtual remote control with other members to let them decide what to watch.
In the absence of Rythm and Groovy, and the likely future absence of other music bots on Discord, this partnership means you can now listen to music in voice channels via YouTube videos, though Discord says vaguely “you may see ads” when you first start using Watch Together.
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