YouTube announces to hide the dislikes counter under videos

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The number of dislikes, illustrated by a thumb down, will no longer be visible on YouTube. Content creators will be able to find their exact number of “dislikes” in the statistics provided by YouTube Studio.

The number of thumbs down now hidden

This Wednesday, November 10, YouTube announced an update to protect creators from harassment and dislikes. As a result, the number of thumbs down under videos will no longer be displayed, although users will still have the option to click the “I don’t like this content” button. The number of thumbs up will always be visible. In addition, creators will still be able to check their “like” / “dislike” ratio via the private YouTube Studio space.

Protecting small creators

YouTube wants to protect its creators from targeted harassment by reducing attacks by increasing the number of dislikes on videos: ” We want to create an inclusive and respectful environment where creators have the opportunity to succeed and feel safe to express themselves,” the Internet giant announced in this video. The latter adds that it conducted tests with some of its creators to determine whether the fact of masking counter of “I do not like” limited the number of dislike. Positive results have been noted, especially among small creators and novices on the platform.

A controversial decision

Youtube acknowledges that it is depriving users of its platform of a metric they could use to decide whether to watch a video or not. « We know you may not agree with our decision,” the site acknowledges.But we think it’s the right thing to do for the platform,” he said. But on November 10, the Internet was abuzz with this news:

Hey @YouTube removing info from the rating system is NOT helpful. Public like/dislike ratio = Useful tool to see how helpful a video will be at a glance. Hiding dislikes helps nothing… but increases the # of ppl dissatisfied by spending too much time watching an unhelpful video https://t.co/PsqkVbis9X

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 11, 2021

Now I can’t see what tutorials are bad from memes

Taking action against online harassment

But YouTube isn’t the first platform to try out the hide likes and dislikes counters. A few months ago, Facebook and Instagram gave their users the ability to choose to display “likes” or “dislikes” on their posts, reflecting the growing importance of users’ mental health to the networks. Indeed, the latter, especially Facebook, are often targeted by the public for not doing enough about online harassment. This year, U.S. lawmakers attacked Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram for their harmful impact on the mental and physical health of young users.

Hopefully this new YouTube measure will do as much good as it proclaims!