Over the past few years, Youtube viewers have been expressing their likes and dislike for videos through the ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ buttons. Just like the trending cancel culture, there has been an ongoing trend among users to dislike the videos which they do not agree upon. Due to this trend, Google-owned video-sharing platform has doubted that this way of randomly disliking videos has brought a decline in Creators’ mental health. Now, Youtube launches tests on hiding dislikes count on their videos.
In a tweet made by Youtube, they explained that this campaign was started “in response to creator feedback around well-being”. This is also an attempt to sideline the targeted dislike campaigns from users. Earlier they revealed that they have launched a small experiment. The experimenting was being done to test several new designs that do not display a public dislike count. They even displayed a possible design for this experiment.
However, content creators will still be able to see the exact number of likes and dislikes through YouTube Studio tool. Similarly, Viewers can still like or dislike a video to share feedback with creators. This act of liking and disliking a video also helps viewers to tune the recommendations they see on YouTube.
Targeted Dislike Campaigns
In 2018, Youtube itself became a victim of a “targeted dislike campaign”. Youtube Rewind video of 2018 gained 19 Million dislikes in comparison to 2.9 Million likes. That’s why Youtube launches this experiment of hiding dislikes count on videos. This video holds the record for the most disliked videos in less than a week of posting. One of the reasons for launching the dislike campaign on this video was because it ignored many native YouTube creators. Instead, the rewind video featured mainstream celebs like Will Smith, Trevor Noah, and John Oliver for which critics were angry.
Also Read: Youtube Now available to Install as a Progressive Web App
