Youtube announces it will make dislikes invisible on all channels

[Farquaar]

► Show Spoiler

In a bid to make "all voices heard", Youtube announced that it will remove the ability for the plebs to easily identify content that is misinformation, low-quality, or objectionable. This is totally not a bid to remove criticism of large brands and overpromoted narcissists with sensitive egos.

Feel free to drop a dislike on their announcement video if you want. It'll probably be the last time your dislikes will actually mean anything.

[Farquaar]

I'd also like to add that EmpLemon predicted this years ago

[terranaut]

[Super Aggro Crag]

netflix did this too years ago and now it's full of shit what a surprise

[Misdoubtful]

This actually sucks. I didn't know making all voices heard meant censoring any opinion of things being bad. Seems like the opposite don't it?

[IkeTG]

this'll just serve to further add to the disinformation problem lmao

[Jonathan Gupta]

This actually sucks. I didn't know making all voices heard meant censoring any opinion of things being bad. Seems like the opposite don't it?

[Rohen_Tahir]

Like counts and comments are still a good way to get a sense of a video’s quality, especially for tutorials and educational videos. This way, users can still see what other viewers’ opinions of videos may be without making creators susceptible to coordinated dislike campaigns and other forms of harassment using the dislike counts.

I turned myself into Twitter Morty

[Super Aggro Crag]

coordinate dislike campaigns and harassment are codewords for "pfizer is pissed off their propaganda campaign got disliked because they're run by reptilian sociopaths"

[Omega_DarkPotato]

interesting theory crag I'd love to hear where you're going with it

[Super Aggro Crag]

interesting theory crag I'd love to hear where you're going with it

youtuber doesn't actually care about "protecting smaller content creators" from "the big bad meanies of the internet" because smaller content creators don't make them money.

large corporations/government enterprises get really, really fucking angry when you tell them "wow this sucks" because they are not accustomed to being questioned and since they put Big Dollarinos into the Youtube they don't want people to have the option to let everyone else knows "yo this video is stanky yo"

same shit happened when fat lady made a netflix special that was all over the platform and it was rancid ass cuz she just kept saying "ayo muh giny stinky dawg, sheit" and so netflix removed all the star ratings in an attempt to con people into watching a shitty standup special because people would no longer be forewarned that damn son it aint good

[oranges]

who fucking cares? since when has anyone looked at the like/dislike counts on anything other than videos they did not like.

[Super Aggro Crag]

who fucking cares? since when has anyone looked at the like/dislike counts on anything other than videos they did not like.

me to find out if songs i like are underappreciated so i share them with my friends so they can listen to a cool artist

[Farquaar]

who fucking cares? since when has anyone looked at the like/dislike counts on anything other than videos they did not like.

[cacogen]

The amount/ratio is unremarkable on 99% of videos. The exceptions are when it's been review bombed and it's clearly not an accurate reflection of the quality of the video or it's one of that avocado guy's videos where it's irrelevant because the idiots will keep hatewatching anyway expecting him to die only for the sheer force of their attention to make him stronger than ever.

[Farquaar]

The amount/ratio is unremarkable on 99% of videos. The exceptions are when it's been review bombed and it's clearly not an accurate reflection of the quality of the video or it's one of that avocado guy's videos where it's irrelevant because the idiots will keep hatewatching anyway expecting him to die only for the sheer force of their attention to make him stronger than ever.

Dislikes are not merely a measure of objective quality. In many cases they operate as a measure of controversiality. It's for people...

...to watch a video with a garbage hot-take, and think "hey, am I insane or is this really stupid?" and then look at the dislikes and realize "oh yeah, I'm not the only one."
...to listen to a politician's propaganda message and think "hey, am I the only one who thinks this is a load of crap?" and then look at the dislikes and realize "oh yeah, I'm not the only one"
...to see a slimy corporation's slick PR advert and think "hey, I think this company is trying to pull a fast one?" and then look at the dislikes and realize "oh yeah, I'm not the only one"
...to have an astroturfed media star shoved in their face and think "hey, is it me or is this guy ruthlessly promoted even though he's an awful person who makes lazy content?" and then look at the dislikes and realize "oh yeah, I'm not the only one"

And I could go on. I would encourage you to watch the EmpLemon video I linked if you'd like a real breakdown of why dislikes are important.

[Super Aggro Crag]

The amount/ratio is unremarkable on 99% of videos. The exceptions are when it's been review bombed and it's clearly not an accurate reflection of the quality of the video or it's one of that avocado guy's videos where it's irrelevant because the idiots will keep hatewatching anyway expecting him to die only for the sheer force of their attention to make him stronger than ever.

review bombing is a buzzword made by corporations to justify putting out shitty content. "Oh, those aren't REAL reviews, they don't count!"

[Helios]

Thumbs up and down is most useful in tech support videos.
It's an easy way to distinguish the bullshit from the legit

[Not-Dorsidarf]

very annoying, youtube keeps removing all forms of viewer-facing rating and evaluation.

Trust the Algorithm. Obey the Algorithm. Consume the Algorithm.

[Farquaar]

Thumbs up and down is most useful in tech support videos.
It's an easy way to distinguish the bullshit from the legit

Naw man I saw this awesome computer building tutorial by The Verge it looks totally legit

very annoying, youtube keeps removing all forms of viewer-facing rating and evaluation.

Trust the Algorithm. Obey the Algorithm. Consume the Algorithm.

Hey you know how you turned off autoplay? Whoops, looks like autoplay got turned on again! What a funny glitch haha

[cacogen]

Why don't they simply block dislikes until you've consumed x amount of the video? It would make it less practical to downvote shit because of the author or what it represents to you instead of the shit itself.

[Farquaar]

I recently learned that Youtube co-founder Jawed Karim edited the description of the first video uploaded to Youtube, "Me at the zoo", to comment on Youtube's effective removal of dislikes.

Reproduced here for those too lazy to click the link:

► Show Spoiler

Watching Matt Koval's announcement about the removal of dislikes, I thought something was off.
The spoken words did not match the eyes. The video reminded me of an interview Admiral Jeremiah Denton gave in 1966. I have never seen a less enthusiastic, more reluctant announcement of something that is supposed to be great.

Calling the removal of dislikes a good thing for creators cannot be done without conflict by someone holding the title of "YouTube's Creator Liaison". We know this because there exists not a single YouTube Creator who thinks removing dislikes is a good idea -- for YouTube or for Creators.

Why would YouTube make this universally disliked change? There is a reason, but it's not a good one, and not one that will be publicly disclosed. Instead, there will be references to various studies. Studies that apparently contradict the common sense of every YouTuber.

The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Why? Because not all user-generated content is good. It can't be. In fact, most of it is not good. And that's OK. The idea was never that all content is good. The idea WAS, however, that among the flood of content, there are great creations waiting to be exposed. And for that to happen, the stuff that's not great has to fall by the side as quickly as possible.

The process works, and there's a name for it: the wisdom of the crowds. The process breaks when the platform interferes with it. Then, the platform invariably declines. Does YouTube want to become a place where everything is mediocre? Because nothing can be great if nothing is bad.

In business, there's only one thing more important than "Make it better". And that's "Don't fuck it up".

[Super Aggro Crag]

>youtube removed the dislike option because companies are mad about their shitty videos getting disliked
>users, instead of clicking the thumbs down and moving on, express themselves through the comment system
>youtube comments become even *more* toxic, angry, and abrasive because they're full of people who are pissed off
>companies get asshurt again and disable comments

jee whiz who could have predicted this shit

[Kendrickorium]

its all so tiresome

[wesoda25]

This is really dumb, very big shame to see this sort of thing.

[Nabski]

who fucking cares? since when has anyone looked at the like/dislike counts on anything other than videos they did not like.

I use it to get an idea if a tutorial video is good advice or bad practices.

[Pandarsenic]

who fucking cares? since when has anyone looked at the like/dislike counts on anything other than videos they did not like.

I use it to get an idea if a tutorial video is good advice or bad practices.

"Yeah just throw on a good amount of thermal paste"

[cacogen]

the idea of that guy editing the zoo video's description that it's going to affect which videos are promoted by the algorithm is wrong i think the impression i got from what i've read was the dislike button is still there and the count is still visible to the creator of the video it's just publicly hidden to avoid dislike bombing

[Not-Dorsidarf]

the idea of that guy editing the zoo video's description that it's going to affect which videos are promoted by the algorithm is wrong i think the impression i got from what i've read was the dislike button is still there and the count is still visible to the creator of the video it's just publicly hidden to avoid dislike bombing

Yeah but that's the wrong way around, youtube video creators shouldnt care how many dislikes they get because they get stats like engagement, average watch time, etc, which are actually relevant to anyone trying to make money on that site. Likes/Dislikes are a user-facing interaction

[Rohen_Tahir]

Enhancer for youtube now shows dislikes on firefox.