23
votes
YouTube experimenting with removal of public dislike count
@YouTube:
👍👎 In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count. If you're part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks (example below!). pic.twitter.com/aemrIcnrbx
The cynic in me thinks this is just to prevent people from publicly crucifying garbage network/television/hollywood content with a 1:10,000 like to dislike ratio and avoiding all the controversy they have to deal with because of that happening all the time. Can't have the networks look bad, can we? I will never believe corporate america when they say they do something 'for your mental health'. What a touching concern from a company that pushes a roided up skinner box as an alternative to television.
If they were serious about mental health, they'd shut youtube off a couple days a week. The creators are still going to be seeing the dislike counts, so how exactly does this help them not feel bad about it? Seems like no change at all from their perspective - well, except now they can lie about their ratios in public.
I think I hate the internet. :P
I agree with your points about the more likely reason for the move.
What I hate is the corporate control over the internet along with and the ubiquitous tracking/snooping.
Google / Facebook / Amazon (maybe Apple and Twitter too) specifically need some form of control as they are all de facto monopolies now - whether they fit the legal descriptions or not.
I've heard for a long time now that like MySpace and others before it Facebook will die off, but I don't think any predecessors were as embedded globally as the tech giants are now.
It's basically impossible to compete with them now as they have so much power and influence they either absorb competition or kill them off.
Totally agree; they could have easily implemented something like Steam did, where abnormal negative ratings are excluded from the total.
This is my mantra
I'd rather they make comments opt-in for creators than try this experiment. Most videos don't need comments and they end up being a cesspool. With comment opt-out some sensible channels that opt out on all of their videos get criticized. Requiring a creator to consider if they should have comments below their video is a better system.
I have no idea what you're talking about...
And those are the good comments!
Better than it used to be 10 years ago, when every single youtube comments section somehow turned in to a debate on religion and/or ethnic cleansing.
It's not? Can't you disable comment on your own videos?
No, that is opt-out.
Disney has a dislike problems on their new Star Wars High Republic content from Gina Carano fans, i guess Disney has something to do with this new change.
Exactly what I was thinking about when I wrote my reply. Gina's just the latest in a long line of sacrifices, but she has ended up costing Disney more than the rest.
They like to pretend it's 'bots' rather than backlash for relentlessly attacking the fans to score points with a twitter mob that doesn't even watch film or television. I've been keeping up with the #fandommenace for some time. It's the closest thing I can find to sane pop culture coverage that lines up with my own tastes. Saves me wasting time on bad franchises and still helps me to find the few good ones out there that haven't sacrificed quality writing for a twitter agenda.
I've never seen a more obvious bad faith attempt to censor critics, paint them as overwhelmingly racist or transphobic despite constant inclusion of women, people of color, gay and trans guests (who also hate these lame ass shows). If modern franchises, in one's opinion, aren't equal to their predecessors, that makes one into an alt-right racist instantly. Any other narrative (including the truth - writer's strike fallout, writers lost) is automatically an alt-right agenda intended to attack various groups. Who needs writers, anyway? We've got the twitter mob to make the hacks look good. :/
Youtube hasn't really been complicit in this, and that's to their credit. They haven't been censoring anything, just trying to stay above the fray. This change sure would help all of those large companies, though. It hides their shame over each new turd they flush down the pipe to their audience. Now when they claim a new show was 'well received' it'll be just a bit harder to demonstrate they are lying through their teeth.
I am looking forward to the bankruptcy of hollywood and the dissolution of that industry. May it never rise again and be washed away by a chaotic renaissance of independent creators. No bailouts for tinseltown. Let's tax them instead. A 15% entertainment tax would get some roads and bridges built right quick.
The idea that this change is to aide corporations relies on likes/dislikes being a useful metric. Likes/dislikes are no better than comments on news articles -- they are purely noise and indicative of nothing other than a leveraged outrage meter.
No, not really. It's not about if they are useful. I don't consider them all that useful (or accurate) myself. It's about when they make a video (such as the first episode of Discovery) look bad because there's an overwhelming majority of negative ratings. This is all about the optics.
Is this the case? I think the outrage mobs like to think this is true but I don't think it is. These days when I see something that has been heavily disliked or review bombed or whatever I rarely jump to it being a reflection of the content. Sometimes that's the case but more often than not it's part of some sort of culture war or whatever.
Everyone seizes on the discrepancy in the reviews and writes or makes videos about it. The discrepancy is feeding the conversations and it can't do that anymore if it's invisible to the public. I'll link an example that I happen to agree with and you fine folks can decide for yourselves.
I honestly cannot think of a single time when I have ever used the dislike button on a youtube video. I can definitely remember using the like button, but the dislike button? Never.
It seems not to be used much, but I'm guessing sometimes people use it to influence their own recommendations? For that use case, it makes sense to hide the dislike count since it's not really intended as author feedback.
Me either. I'm more likely to use the 'not interested' content option than a dislike to prime their algorithm. I feel no particular need to crap on someone else's parade - if I don't like the content, I just move on to content I do like.
I had forgotten that 'not interested' existed. Perhaps others aren't that aware of the distinction?
Perhaps. I found it works a lot better at knocking down general content categories - like alt-right recommendations. Stop showing me videos from Poole, Crowder, and Shapiro already.
I noticed it has absolutely no effect every time I hit ABC/FOX/NBC/CBS with both dislikes and 'not interested', though. Youtube has determined that I shall watch the NBC Nightly News broadcast no matter how much I hate it.
I tend to use it to remind myself that I've seen a video but removed it from my watch history. Things like reposts/ripoffs when I'd rather watch the original video, or boring stuff that I'll forget but might get recommended again.
Eh, baby steps I suppose. The effort would probably be better spent on a suite of different changes. If you went and asked YouTubers what changes could be made to site mechanics that would improve their mental well-being, I suspect there'd be a long list of issues before this...
Although mostly useless, dislikes on YouTube do also have a purpose in flagging clickbait or factually incorrect videos. Not sure how - or if - they plan to replace that.
Title is wrong, it's removal of dislike count. you can still dislike it, you just won't know the like/dislike ratio.
Whoops yeah that title does sensationalize the whole thing a bit. Could someone edit the title to something along the lines of "YouTube experimenting with removing public dislike count" please?
Done.