Hi, it's me again! Most of you will have noticed by now that dislikes on videos have become private on YouTube. What do you think about this, and how does it affect you? I was a bit annoyed at first, because the dislike function can be useful to quickly tell that something is wrong with a video. However, then I remembered that this very rarely actually works. I have sometimes come across flawless videos that had more dislikes than likes, and I have often come across bad or even terrible videos that had a dislike to like ratio of less than 1:10. So the function wasn't too useful anyway. What's good, is that dislikes being made private will reduce dislike spamming. I don't think it will stop the dislike spammer on my channel, though, and I have heard on several occasions that someone liked my video because they saw that it had a dislike on it. So I'll lose some likes over this, I reckon. But that's fine. Overall, I think this is a good change. Do you agree?
Every creator criticized the decision One of the youtube founders also commented on this topic (see description of video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw 90%+ of the Most disliked videos on the platform come from companies. This move only protects them. When a user wants to search for something either for fun or education purposes, they don't like to waste their time. Dislikes have a purpose in a content platform, which is very useful. The dislike functions helps notify other users if a tutorial is bad. Removing this feature truly is hurting everyone except corporations.
I think it's a positive change. Sites like instagram, twitter, tiktok etc. only have like options. Yes, the dislike button has some uses, but it largely disheartens smaller youtubers who don't understand why x number of people say they don't like the video they put time into. If you don't like something, then leave a comment, like any other social media page.
The thing is, this isn't a social media website. It's a platform specifically built around videos of varying length and quality. That can be about a very broad range of things. From people just playing games alone or together, discussion on politics or just world events, tutorials ranging from things in everyday life to just getting some help for a game or computer program or just help with your computer/any other electronic device in general. Which can also have A LOT of comments for those videos. Having to dig through the comments to find a well constructed comment detailing why the video is bad is a challenge at times. Plus comments can just be outright disabled for a video too. Meaning likes and dislikes would be your only way of seeing what people think of said video. Edit: Plus dislikes are also used as a way for people to protest or show their immense displeasure with a company, developer, etc. for making or doing something poorly. Hiding that allows them to cover up any negativity towards them. Even if only a little. Which shouldn't be allowed.
YouTube is a social media platform. It is indeed used for information and content sharing and gathering more than the other sites that Devil mentioned, however. You are right that it is hard to find a well constructed comment detailing why a video is bad, but this is also the case now. Mind that there are videos that have way more dislikes than likes even though the video is flawless, and that there are videos that have way more likes than dislikes even though the video is terrible. You can't trust the masses' use of the like and dislike buttons, I guess. What kind of political considerations? I hope this won't become a controversial thread. Thanks for sharing! Here is it, for those that don't want to go to the video page, or for the future when it is not there anymore: I think this is a very bad use of dislikes that is definitely a good riddance. Likes and dislikes should be about the video, not the creator!
Well, that was a short discussion. I have already missed display of dislikes a few times, but also been glad for the lack of it a few times.
The problem is that comments can be deleted by the uploader of the video, and thus are not a sure way to assess whether a video is alright or not.
damn these neo-nazi propaganda videos spewing weird race-based social darwinist pseudoscience have thousands of likes and 0 dislikes, that must mean they’re really good!!!
What's the intent of this message? If people have this thought, it will go away soon enough, as the people inexperienced enough to have this impression won't know that dislikes were ever shown on videos publicly.
Neo-nazi propaganda videos spewing weird race-based social darwinist pseudoscience are bad. The target audience will be young males who have either refused to admit their faults and failed to take control of their lives and are looking - subconsciously or consciously - for something to blame it on, or easy malleable children. If the videos have a big like-to-dislike ratio, someone searching for a sense of belonging (a 20-something with no friends, no girlfriend, and a sense of being emasculated by their own faults) or someone looking for guidance from others (a child) might see that and go, "Oh! If something is sparking such a negative reaction, it must not be good." Now that the dislikes are hidden (not gone - content creators can still see them, and calling them 'hidden' plays into YouTube's 'it's for the mental health of our creators and not PepsiCo/Coca Cola/Amazon/other subsidiaries of Google/etc.' lie), that reaction cannot take place. That young man who's failed to admit their faults is now barrelling down the pipeline of "the reason why I can't get a girlfriend isn't because I don't approach women in the first place, because I don't clean my room, because I haven't showered in 3 weeks and my beard is full of last night's jar of mayonnaise! It's actually because I don't have a government-granted girlfriend and [ethnic minority] has taken control of the media and are propagandising our women to make them think [ethnic minority] are superior to me!" It's worth noting that YouTube's algorithm works in such a way that the site already encourages this to happen and that, arguably, needs fixing more than adding the dislike counter back, it's just that the dislike-like ratio served as a buffer to the pipeline, as a useful and needed dose of reality, on a lot of these videos.
I see your point. Unfortunately though, I don't think dislikes would do a lot to help, here. I think the issue is much larger than that, as you admitted, and I also think that most people won't be too dissuaded by a large dislike-to-like ratio. It just polarises, like the 'fake news' hype. I would also doubt that such videos would have too many dislikes to begin with, as that would require a lot of people against the videos watching them... and why would they? Thanks for your input, though.
The owners of YouTube are aligned with certain powerful political and corporate entities whose high-visibility channels have received extreme dislike ratios in recent times. They changed their format as a result of financial pressure from said interests rather than out of altruistic concern for the effects of ratios on the average, minor channel.
