Youtube is going to make dislike count private
This video will be obsolete on Youtube once the dislike button is invisible.
The dislike bar has been an iconic expression of Youtube users. It gives people a way to know what is the public reaction to that video. Dislike bar is not that bad if you think about it because it gave people infamy. When people dislike bomb Justin Bieber’s Baby and Rebecca Black’s Friday got the videos more viral. The Dislike bar gives movie producers know if people like their movies or not.
People knew that the audience didn’t like the Female Ghostbusters reboot because of the dislike bar. Even big entities like Marvel have taste of displeasure from their fans when they released the trailers for the comic books, New Heroes and Children of the Atom. Marvel discovered the fanbase don’t like those concepts so they cancel the release of them. Youtube itself had a taste of this democratic medicine when they made their infamous 2018 rewind.
I think the real reason is pretty obvious pic.twitter.com/yWO58uyBRD
— Oken (@playerone_237) March 30, 2021
👍👎 In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count. If you're part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks (example below!). pic.twitter.com/aemrIcnrbx
— YouTube (@YouTube) March 30, 2021
Youtube just made a controversial decision that can diminish the freedom of speech of the flatform because they are making the dislike invisible to users in the near future.
Freedom of speech is a human right but all the recent controversies make it a liability. Youtube is supposed to be about You, me, we, and us. Sadly, democracy will be taken away. Their reason is justifiable. The hate campaigns did take a toll on the well-being of some creators. . We can still dislike videos but they will only be visible to the creator of the video.
I don’t like this change but I understand why they did this. In some countries paid political trolls had been disliking bombing critics of the government to make an illusion that their leader is popular.
This issue divides me in two sides. Part of me believes that freedom of speech is a human right but some people abuse that privilege to spread hate.