YouTube is the largest video-viewing platform and is owned by Alphabet Inc. which is the parent company of Google. On YouTube, when users upload their videos, viewers can either like or dislike the video on the platform. Of course, nobody would want to get a dislike; a dislike could automatically translate to not putting out a good or creative content. These days, dislikes (and even the comment section) has become a weapon for cyber-bullying and cyber bullies use this as a medium of trolling people, making fun of contents that are genuine, and contents that a lot of time and effort have gone into. Sometimes, if not most time, the dislike button does not mean that the video is bad thus defeating the purpose of having a dislike option.
In a tweet put out by YouTube, the company said ‘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!)’
‘Creators, you’ll still be able to see the exact number of likes and dislikes in YouTube Studio. For viewers, if you’re in experiment, you can still like or dislike a video to share feedback with creators and help tune the recommendations you see on YouTube’, the company also tweeted.
The dislike option has proved to be more than a weapon of destruction and embarrassment and not only creators have been faced with this wrath. Brands and even politicians have suffered in the hands of dislike mobs. Some people are of the opinion that YouTube’s plan of hiding the public count is a good idea, others believe that it is not and is only a way of suppressing genuine feedback.
YouTube is also testing in another experiment, a new feature that will automatically find all products featured in a video that viewers are watching and will suggest links that are related to these products. ‘We are experimenting a new feature that displays a list of products detected in some videos, as well as related products. The feature will appear in between the recommended videos, to viewers scrolling below the video player. The goal is to help people explore more videos and information about those products on YouTube. This feature will be visible to people watching videos in the US’, the tech giant revealed in its support pages.
Do you think YouTube’s decision to not show public count is a good idea or is just a way of suppressing genuine feedback?
