The problem with the internet and social media, is that it has given too many people a voice that they use to voice harmful opinions in an attempt to bully other people, rather than create real meaningful dialogue. This is what has led to different social media companies spending a lot of effort on using various AI and moderation tools to stop people from inflicting online abuse.
It’s not just comments though that can leave a lasting scar, as we’ve also seen online trolls do various things from giving low ratings to media on aggregation sites out of spite or downvoting things like crazy just because they can. And it’s that latter practice that YouTube is considering stopping as the company has revealed that is experimenting with the idea of removing the public dislike count to protect the mental well-being of creators who are often the subject of massive downvoting campaigns.
Creators rely on likes and dislikes as a form of feedback on their creative output and this typically allows them to better understand what audiences are looking for and adjust accordingly. The problem is that this sytem has become more of a tool for abuse from some people that doesn’t provide any meaningful feedback and as such YouTube has been exploring several options such as removing likes and dislikes entirely, or possibly requiring more interaction and feedback when a person dislikes something.
Google appears to be trying out the easier approach of simply hiding the dislike count to see if that solves the problem before taking any further drastic action. One of the nice things about YouTube and what it has done for creators is that it has given them a real platform for feedback with fans. Here;s hoping that this idea doesn’t get ruined by people who have nothing else to do with their time online besides trying to mentally damage hurt other people.
Last Updated: April 7, 2021
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
April 7, 2021 at 06:07
As is the nature of humans, a few rotten apples spoil the bunch.
BradeLunner
April 7, 2021 at 06:46
What the shit
MaSeKind
April 7, 2021 at 08:06
Good luck in expecting people to not say negative stuff when you give them a voice.
I’ve never liked (haha) or really used the like system. I find it pretty pointless. I know Youtubers use it to judge how their videos are doing, but it doesn’t provide any real feedback. What does a dislike mean? Two different people will have different answers. Did they dislike because of the content, or because of the quality of the video. How can you rely on a system of feedback to improve your content if you have no idea what the feedback was about?
I actually think the idea of given some feedback when you disliked a video is the best way to go. At least give some more context as to why you disliked it.
The D
April 7, 2021 at 09:21
It also factors into the almighty YouTube Al Gore Rhythm. So if YT picks up a million downvotes on a video, it’s less likely to push it, thus depriving the uploader of views and adsense.
Which makes sense for videos that deserve to be downvoted, but the system is also used as a weapon to silence other people.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
April 7, 2021 at 08:18
This man knows whats up
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
April 7, 2021 at 08:18
This man knows whats up
Dee ham
April 7, 2021 at 13:23
you could ask YouTube to remove the dislike button to preserve your mental wellbeing.
….or you but put on your big-boy/big-girl pants and grow a pair.
Dee ham
April 7, 2021 at 13:23
you could ask YouTube to remove the dislike button to preserve your mental wellbeing.
….or you but put on your big-boy/big-girl pants and grow a pair.
Ant Visagie
April 7, 2021 at 16:34
Or maybe just wear your big boy pants and ignore the trolls and take the positive criticism to heart and learn from it. Once again, Youtube tries to fix something that isn’t broken and will probably end up making it worse. Like the comment section of this website, I’ve never seen it this dead before.
Ant Visagie
April 7, 2021 at 16:34
Or maybe just wear your big boy pants and ignore the trolls and take the positive criticism to heart and learn from it. Once again, Youtube tries to fix something that isn’t broken and will probably end up making it worse. Like the comment section of this website, I’ve never seen it this dead before.
Mandalorian Jim
April 8, 2021 at 07:41
To be fair, nowadays big boy pants are in short supply, and it’s a lot more profitable to be offended, act offended and to rush with pitchforks.
HvR
April 8, 2021 at 05:06
This is just Youtube protecting themselves from themselves.
Mandalorian Jim
April 8, 2021 at 07:40
I guess after the negative comments and downvotes wachawhatsisface always gets on her videos, I’m sure it’s easier to rather put heads and necks under sand, and pretend only positive feedback matters.
Syndiciate
April 9, 2021 at 14:28
This is a terrible decision for a variety of reasons.
1. Dislikes are a great way to signal quality or lack thereof, so if you are looking for a good tutorial or instruction video where the speaker gives clear and helpful instructions, likes and dislikes allow you to easily sort through videos relating to what you are trying to find. Removing dislikes makes this process much more difficult and time consuming.
2. Apart from the inconvenience (which is honestly enormous when you consider that billions of people use the site for such purposes every single day), it also means that extremists who only care about promoting their ideology will be given an even bigger advantage over moderates now as, unlike those actually taking the time to verify the quality of the video,they will be able to like and comment on videos that appear to support their stance at a far faster rate ensuring that partisan and extreme content which studies have already shown increase both positive and negative engagement (the only negative form of engagement after this policy is implemented being comments which also boost the amount of views a video gets as the number of comments is one of the statistics YouTubes systems take into account when figuring out which videos to promote) becomes far more popular and will contribute to increased political polarization and the acceleration of the political binary in nations where YouTube is used to any significant extent.
3. The fact that a content creator can delete comments they dont like means that those who dont have the ability to distinguish between truth and fiction now lose not only the ability to look at the like / dislike bar and see if something fishy is going on but now their ability to find a comment which debunks the lies within the video are also far more difficult (even impossible if the content creator is determined enough) to find. This will lead to the spread of disinformation and clickbait and ultimately make it so that provocative content is given even more of an advantage over actual quality content in terms of what gets consumed.
4. Apart from the issues which are created by this decision, it also doesnt fix anything as the content creator would still be able to see the amount of dislikes if they go to look at their statistics and they can already turn off dislikes and comments as of now.
Disclaimer: This is an English comment written via Google Translate. I apologize for any strange wording in the post.