YouTube will start hiding from public view the dislike count on all videos. The service will keep the thumbs-down button but the overall count showing how hated a video is will now be hidden.
YouTube said in a blog post that “we experimented with the dislike button to see whether or not changes could help better protect our creators from harassment, and reduce dislike attacks — where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos. […] 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.”
Ironically the most disliked video in the history of YouTube was published by YouTube itself; “YouTube Rewind 2018“
In the announcement post, YouTube claims this change is to help “smaller creators and those just getting started […] unfairly targeted” by mass dislikes. However, many people were of the opinion that this was really about protecting brands’ egos.
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Both creators and media alike, have pointed out how useful the dislike ratio is when reviewing tutorials.
“It’s an interesting move, because, for many viewers, the dislike button can also be used as a way to decide if the video you are about to watch is worth your time. This is especially true when it comes to things like tutorial videos, a mainstay of the platform.” said Josiah Motley of Knowtechie.
