YouTube is Officially Getting Rid of its Dislike Counts
YouTube will be making all dislike counts hidden, only available to the video creator. The tech giant announced via a blog post that they decided to make the dislike counts hidden to combat harassment.
“In short, our experiment data showed a reduction in dislike attacking behavior. We also heard directly from smaller creators and those just getting started that they are unfairly targeted by this behavior — and our experiment confirmed that this does occur at a higher proportion on smaller channels.”
I remember when public dislikes on YouTube changed the course of history for the better. pic.twitter.com/aMq5EfgnVt
— Hikikomori Media YT♨️ (@HikikomoriMedia) November 10, 2021
This isn’t the first time YouTube said they’re getting rid of the dislike button. Back in March, YouTube announced that they were experimenting with hiding dislikes. Only the likes of a video will be public. YouTube explained that this is being done for the “video creator’s well-being” and that dislikes “may motivate a targeted campaign on a creator’s video.” Content creators rely on likes and dislikes for feedback on their videos. Now the creators can get this feedback without people knowing how many dislikes their video has.
YouTube officially removes dislikes from public view. I’m not a fan of this decision. Especially since there is already an option to disable dislikes should you choose to do so. https://t.co/WAVzCGbH6K
— Tipster (@BanishedJourno) November 10, 2021
In a recent video, YouTube liaison Matt Koval explained that the likes and dislikes were originally in place for people to get an idea of whether a video was good or not. Now it has turned into video warfare where people are driving up the dislikes simply to attack because the person doesn’t like the video creator. After conducting their own research, Koval claimed that the dislikes didn’t impact viewership.
The thing I don’t get is even with Youtube’s own logic this won’t even help smaller creators from being harassed. They’ll still see the dislikes.
— AlternateHistoryHub (@AltHistoryHub) November 10, 2021
The only thing this changes is the public perception of a video (and its probably not for the smaller creators) https://t.co/ySRfAc2QGi
There is speculation that this decision arises from YouTube itself receiving the most disliked video in its existence. Their 2018 video “Rewind” includes all the biggest and most important videos and events for the company. This is the most disliked video ever, receiving 19 million dislikes and 3 million likes. “Baby Shark Dance” takes second place with 14 million dislikes. This process will be gradual, but the dislikes will eventually go away.
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