YouTube Removes Dislike Count, And The Internet Reacted

Several people may have noticed how dislike counts on some YouTube videos couldn’t be seen. This was actually an experiment YouTube did in early 2021 to curb down on dislike count attack.

The new system has been implemented as YouTube announced it on Twitter.

In case you’re too lazy to watch, here’s the summary: dislike button function remains, except that people won’t be able to see the counter anymore. The algorithm remains as it will contribute to your recommendation page.

And well, people didn’t like this new update.

Apparently, YouTube thought their experiment results show that it’s a good idea to get it removed. They also later shared about their research and decision in a blog post the day before.

“At YouTube, we strive to be a place where creators of all sizes and backgrounds can find and share their voice. To ensure that YouTube promotes respectful interactions between viewers and creators, we introduced several features and policies to improve their experience. And earlier this year, we experimented with the dislike button to see whether or not changes could help better protect our creators from harassment, and reduce dislike attacks — where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos.

As part of this experiment, viewers could still see and use the dislike button. But because the count was not visible to them, we found that they were less likely to target a video’s dislike button to drive up the count. In short, our experiment data showed a reduction in dislike attacking behavior¹. We also heard directly from smaller creators and those just getting started that they are unfairly targeted by this behavior — and our experiment confirmed that this does occur at a higher proportion on smaller channels.

Based on what we learned, 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.”

Many small creators felt that the change was not going to help them.

Some were pointing out that YouTube is probably still salty from their major flop on YouTube Rewind in 2018.

While others reminisce on the day when everything was perfectly balanced.

Reality is often disappointing.