YouTube has announced that it will hide the number of 'dislikes' on all videos on its platform. This change is intended to protect creators from 'dislike attacks' or other forms of harassment, as well as to promote good interaction between creators and viewers.
YouTube says that even though the number of dislikes won't be publicly visible, that doesn't mean the dislike button will be removed. Users can still click the thumbs down button to show their dislike of a video or set a recommendation video algorithm, as quoted from TechCrunch, Thursday (11/11/2021).
Meanwhile, creators will be able to see the number of dislikes they've received in YouTube Studio along with analytical data regarding their video's performance. The number of dislikes on videos will begin to be gradually removed across all YouTube platforms, including all devices and the web.
The move follows an experiment YouTube conducted a few months ago to see if changes like this could reduce dislike or harassment attacks.
At the time, YouTube said that the number of publicly viewable dislikes could influence creators and could encourage troll campaigns to increase the number of dislikes on a video.
View the YouTube application without the number of dislikes Photo: doc. YouTube
But on the same side, the number of dislikes is often used by users as an indicator of video quality. For example, videos that are spam or clickbait must have a large number of dislikes.
YouTube says when it tried to hide the number of dislikes, people were less likely to use the dislike button to attack their creators. But this kind of behavior is likely to continue because creators can still see the number of dislikes on their videos via YouTube Studio.
YouTube isn't the only social media platform that hides metrics like likes and dislikes. Instagram recently launched a feature where users can hide the number of likes on their posts.
But Instagram still gives users the option to show or hide the number of likes on posts. Unlike YouTube, which hides the number of dislikes by default.
YouTube itself currently holds the record as the account with the video that has the most dislikes. The '2018 YouTube Rewind' video they uploaded to close 2018 has been viewed almost 221 million times and has 19 million dislikes.