<![CDATA[The high number of online gamblers in Indonesia is linked to the availability of information regarding the names of online gambling sites. This kind of information often obtained through YouTube Shorts comment sections. This study aims to identify the visual characteristics of online gambling spam messages found in YouTube Shorts comment sections in Indonesia. A descriptive qualitative approach utilizing text mining was employed to analyze 2,715 comments identified as online gambling spam, drawn from 204 YouTube Shorts videos collected in November 2025. The findings reveal that online gambling spam messages predominantly target comedy and podcast content, averaging 13 comments per video. The study also identifies five visual characteristics of these comments: the use of non-ASCII characters, specific keywords associated with online gambling, the inclusion of “4D” in the site’s name, the use of emojis, and the use of alphanumeric characters. These characteristics are designed to enable the spam comments to bypass automatic social media moderation systems. Based on these findings, the researchers recommend to enhancing public digital literacy to enable the detection and conscious to report those online gambling comments. ]]>
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