YouTube has announced on Wednesday that the display of the dislike counter on videos will be removed, starting today.
We’re making the dislike counts private across YouTube, but the dislike button is not going away. This change will start gradually rolling out today.
In an announcement made on the video streaming platform’s blog, the move is to promote respectful interactions between viewers and creators.
Prior to the decision, YouTube has been conducting experiments in July on whether or not creators could be protected from dislike attacks and harassment by hiding the dislike button. Experiment results show that dislike attacks were less likely to happen when the dislike counts weren’t displayed, thus the decision to move forward with the count display removal.
“Viewer feedback has always been and will continue to be, an important part of YouTube. But we’ve heard from creators that the public dislike counts can impact their wellbeing, and may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video,” a Youtube Community Manager posted on the YouTube Community page regarding the experiment.
“So, we’re testing designs that don’t include the visible like or dislike count in an effort to balance improving the creator experience, while still making sure viewer feedback is accounted for and shared with the creator,” he added.
While some viewers use the dislike button for harassment and attacks, most use the dislike button to decide whether they like a video or not and fine-tune their streaming experience.
Viewers can still dislike videos to tune their recommendations and privately share feedback with creators.
Creators will still be able to find the dislike count for their videos privately on the YouTube Studio for content analysis and evaluation.
SOURCE: YouTube, YouTube Community
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