Dislike Numbers Will Be Hidden on YouTube
Users and Creators Dislike the Removal
Youtube is the second most used website in the world, drawing over 22 Billion visits every month. Recently, they’ve made a controversial change by removing the dislike feature across all videos.
The dislike button still remains for viewers to express their opinion and curate content. However, the count of how many people dislike a video has been removed. Creators are still able to access this number privately but for users, this information will remain unknown.
Youtube’s Co-founder Criticizes the Move
This move has generated a wave of backlash from Youtube’s community, even drawing the ire of the site’s co-founder Jawed Karim. Karim voiced his concern, changing the description of Youtube’s first-ever uploaded video, Me at the Zoo. Karim says in the post,
“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.”
With over 72,000 hours of content being uploaded to youtube every day, the dislike button has been helpful to the community in distinguishing worthwhile content.
Youtube’s Fight Against Online Harassment
Youtube cites their decision behind the feature’s removal as an effort to combat “dislike attacks” that can hurt smaller creators. A recent blog post states, “We know that you might not agree with this decision, but we believe that this is 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.”
Inclusivity and respect are undoubtedly crucial to the health of Youtube’s ecosystem. But with online harassment continuing to exist throughout a myriad of different digital avenues, it leaves one to wonder how effective removing dislikes could be.
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