If you’ve used the internet for a significant period of time, you’d know that the top pastime for netizens is voicing their displeasure online.
About literally anything.
There’s something about anonymity that turns otherwise cordial, pleasant people into expletive-flinging, vitriol-spewing maniacs. This is why all the particularly nasty online comments can be found YouTube and Twitter, where users often make fake accounts to ‘troll’ others.
Well, it seems YouTube has had enough of this behaviours, and is doing everything possible to prevent “dislike attacks”.
Soon, YouTube Will Not Show the Number of Dislikes in a Video
In an effort to rein in creator harassment, YouTube will be hiding the dislike count for videos on the platform.
To be clear, users will still be able to dislike a video, as the dislike button will still be visible. It’s just that you won’t be able to see how many dislikes a video has received.
Creators will still be able to see their dislike counts to understand how their content is performing, while viewers can still dislike videos to tune their recommendations and let creators know that they’re not a fan of their work.
Stopping “Dislike Attacks”
As YouTube noted in its news release yesterday (10 Nov), it conducted an experiment with the dislike button earlier this year.
The aim of the experiment was to determine if changes could help protect creators from harassment, and reduce what it called “dislike attacks”.
It described dislike attacks as instances “where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos.”
“As part of this experiment, viewers could still see and use the dislike button. But because the count was not visible to them, we found that they were less likely to target a video’s dislike button to drive up the count,” YouTube said.
“In short, our experiment data showed a reduction in dislike attacking behavior.
“We also heard directly from smaller creators and those just getting started that they are unfairly targeted by this behavior — and our experiment confirmed that this does occur at a higher proportion on smaller channels,” it added.
During the experiment, users mentioned that they had used the dislike count to decide whether or not to watch a video. But YouTube believes making it private is still the right thing to do for the platform.
“We want to create an inclusive and respectful environment where creators have the opportunity to succeed and feel safe to express themselves. This is just one of many steps we are taking to continue to protect creators from harassment,” it said.
So, if you want to show your disdain for a video, you’ll have to leave a comment from now on. Just try and be nice about it.
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