YouTube Removes Dislike Totals to Protect Creators
Published: November 17, 2021
YouTube claims that it is removing dislikes on videos to protect users from “dislike bombing” and reduce the “stress and embarrassment” for creators. Dislike bombing is when people coordinate to dislike a video to discourage potential viewers.
The said change has been met with mixed reactions from users, with some content creators saying it’s “not very helpful” while some say it might help their mental health.
Kenzo Jae, a rapper who promotes his music on the platform and has around 200 subscribers, thinks removing the dislike totals will protect small-scale content creators like him.
He said that it would discourage a lot of trolling and “mean-spirited” people on the Internet who intend to put down other people’s creative work.
On the other hand, Chris of the YouTube channel Half-Asleep Chris, says that the dislike totals help avoid clickbait. According to him, the counts reveal how good the video is before viewers watch it.
Although Chris agrees that it will help address the bullying aspect of dislike bombing, he believes that 99% of users don’t use the dislike button for that purpose.
The creator also said that YouTube already provides tools to stop online bullies. For instance, it auto-blocks hateful comments and won’t let them go live until a creator manually clicks them.
Although the change has not been rolled out fully yet, the announcement has got 195,000 dislikes as of the writing. Some users wondered if YouTube was making the change because the most disliked video on the platform, Youtube Rewind 2018, is theirs. However, YouTube denied that.
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Anne is a certified digital marketing strategist, a behavioral coach, and a technology guru. She has spent most of her life managing people from all walks of life until she decided to turn her passion for tech into a reality. As she is now a master of all things technology in the SEO world, managing Websitebuilder.org is her dream come true. She is also a proud mom to a future psychologist, and she loves to cook, cook, and cook some more!
