Just weeks ago, Google-owned YouTube forced two of the most well-known (and most used) Discord music bots to stop operating within Discord. Rythm and Groovy were both victims of a cease and desist issued by the megacorporation, much to the irritation of the 30 million-plus users who employed the bot’s services. In efforts to bring some of that music/YouTube functionality back to Discord, Google seems to be making a partnership with the company official. YouTube Integration has started appearing in a small number of Discord servers over the past 24 hours via a new feature called ‘Watch Together’. As the name implies, the newly introduced, experimental feature allows Discord members to watch YouTube videos together. It acts similarly to someone broadcasting their screen in the app, basically. There’s a toggle in there that allows you to let other people control playback of the video that’s broadcasting, too, making collaborative watching easier and more straightforward. Of course, YouTube is likely set to profit from this: Discord noted that “you may see ads during YouTube videos,” so don’t expect an ad-free situation here. As per The Verge, the feature is “only rolling out to Discord friends and family servers today” and “a wider beta” will be made available to small servers next, before “broader availability” in the next few weeks. Earlier this year, Discord ended acquisition talks with Microsoft and announced it would remain an independent company.
