YouTube’s latest change is aiming for positivity. The platform announced that they maybe hide the number of ‘dislikes’ in the content. The move is because of creators’ feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns in recent years.
The “dislike” button will still appear but the number of tallied clicks will not be displayed. YouTube hopes for this to encourage goodwill and reduce cyberbullying.
Creators will still be able to see the number of likes and dislike in YouTube Studio.
Although 27,000 people liked the announcement on Twitter, many criticized the move as ‘limiting user judgment’.
As one critic said, “As a user, I need to be able to see what the ratio of a video is so I can see if it’s worth the time to watch or if I should move on to another video.”
This started from videos from the White House which relate to the ‘targeted dislike campaign’. This, according to one follower, may have inspired YouTube to attempt to restore balance.
Earlier this month, TikTok, also introduced the feature to ‘foster kindness and community’. The changes include an option for users to ‘filter’ comments, allowing for more control over which comments appear beneath the clip.
There is also a prompt for commenters to ‘reconsider posting a comment that may be inappropriate or unkind’.
Source: NYPost