On November 10, YouTube posted an announcement on its blog about the latest change to the platform. Accordingly, YouTube will still allow users to use the Dislike button on all videos, but the number of Dislikes will no longer be publicly displayed like before.
Although the Dislike counter was created for its own purpose, counting the number of times a user dislikes a video that they have responded to on YouTube, in recent years, YouTube researchers have realized that many users tend to "throw stones" at a video in an emotional way, or to carry out a boycott campaign.
Specifically, many people use the Dislike button not because of the quality of the content, but because they dislike the creator, or some other subjective reason. This has led to the appearance of rankings such as "Most Disliked Videos on Youtube" and hindered the creativity of content creators.
YouTube believes that the Dislike campaign attack can create a mob mentality, affecting content creators on its platform.
In an effort to prevent this situation and help all creators have a healthy environment to develop, regardless of whether they are large organizations or individual personal channels, Youtube will officially put the Dislike count on videos in private mode.
YouTube tested hiding dislikes earlier this year with the goal of determining whether the change would reduce attacks and harassment against creators. What they discovered during that process led to the decision to officially remove the dislike count from all videos.
Youtube design with Dislikes hidden.
Although many users oppose this change because they will not be able to check the quality of videos as easily as before, what YouTube is more concerned about is the negativity and mental effects that the "dislike" group causes on content creators, even on the community in general.
In particular, video creators can still see the number of likes and dislikes in their videos through Youtube Studio. Youtube has now started making this change and will apply it to all videos in the near future.
