YouTube Removing Dislike Counts To Help Stop Harassment

YouTube is the world’s largest video platform. It is also the second most visited website in the world. On Wednesday YouTube announced it will now hide dislike counts as part of its ongoing effort to curb harassment.

The Google-owned company is currently worth 500 Billion. YouTube gets more than one billion monthly users who actively watch and engage with its content. It’s obvious that with numbers this big there will be some trouble. One such issue that the giants have trouble dealing with is “Dislike Counts”. Unlike newer platforms like Facebook Watch and Instagram TV, YouTube has had a dislike bar since its inception.

YouTube first started testing the hidden dislike count feature in March 2021. Video creators were still be able to see the exact number of likes and dislikes in YouTube Studio.

Viewers will be able to dislike a video but wont see the count. The Tech Giants explained, “For viewers, if you’re in the [test] experiment, you can still like or dislike a video to share feedback with creators and help tune the recommendations you see on YouTube.”

In its testing, YouTube discovered that many smaller channels are disproportionately hit by “dislike mobs.” The attacks can hurt creators because a high number of dislikes can affect the way YouTube algorithm gives out video recommendations. Previously, creators only had the option of turning off both like and dislike counts, which was a drawback to showcasing videos that garnered likes.

Dislike mobs have been a nuisance to the YouTube creator community for a long time. People deliberately downvote videos to drive up dislikes and harass the creators. Hateful groups even go to the extent of running “dislike bots” on channels. We hope this decision will help small creators on YouTube who suffer the most due to this.

What do you think of this decision? Let us know in the comments!