This is like Amazon letting anyone review a product, but only showing you how many 5-star reviews there are. Completely useless.
Making the dislike count private across YouTube
431–440 of 1001 posts
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#432I used to not understand why videos had dislikes even when they haven't premiered yet. But then one day, I realized that in order for YouTube to stop recommending me some channels, I had to press the dislike button.
YouTube recommendation is so bad. Even when you aren't interested in something, they keep on showing it until you click on it. For example, I watched a few Squid Game videos a few weeks ago. Suddenly, because Ben Shapiro did a video on Squid Game, it kept on showing me that thumbnail for days.
The algorithm should have realized that his channel was much more about right wing news than Squid Game and shouldn't have shown it every single day on my recommendation. I don't watch any politics on YouTube.
The worst part was if I clicked on the video, it would re-enforce the algorithm that I wanted right wing news. So the only option was to click the dislike button. It feel like I was force to click the button.
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#433> We’ve also heard directly from smaller creators, and those just getting started with their YouTube channel, that they are unfairly targeted by dislike attacks Wow. Well, the politically motivated truth behind this change is pretty darn obvious, right? If you're confused what I mean, check any US mainstream media video with an obvious political slant but pretending to be "objective news" and look at the like/dislike…
Every video that correctly describes the benefits of the COVID vaccine and makes it to the front page is spammed with dislikes, and this constitutes a major threat to public health. No, this is actually a very important change.
Whose public health exactly? The people who have willingly chosen not to take the vaccine?
Or are you meaning we must "protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated"?
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#434Piling onto the anecdotes, I always do a rough maths of likes vs. dislikes before watching any video from unknown creators. For pure entertainment, a 100-to-1 ratio or better means it might be watchable. For science, maths or computing maybe 20-to-1. If a woman, black person or LGBTQ* person is presenting I assume that the haters have already got to the downvote button, so I give them about a 10x slack.
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#435People are weirdly outraged here. Likes/Dislikes on really public platforms like reddit and youtube are just a game, they tell you nothing about the quality of something, only whether it matches the agreed upon view of the core audience. Barely anyone thinks about dislikes on youtube until there's a big event like youtube rewind.
You are wrong. Every now and then I need find and watch instruction video on how to do something, like how to install my old ancient printer on Windows 10, or how to disassemble my laptop, or how to flush my water heater. If I see a bad like/dislike ratio I can know right away the video is useless.
I have same way of estimating tutorials and similar content. There are quite many people posting videos without real understanding what they are teaching..
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#436[flagged]
Finally someone posted something logical and well reasoned, thank you!
Content creator protections and guardrails go both ways and can protect both the producers of propaganda but also the small independent voices of dissent too. People don't realize that voices of dissent can be shouted down or terrorized by trolls and harassment. Imagine a scenario where a small content creator speaks out against powerful governments. These governments have their online propaganda farms troll that users content with dislikes and hateful comments designed to scare them into deleting it. The dislike ratio is then used to downvote the content so it doesn't appear in people's recommended watch lists a form of censorship in itself.
I'd rather have a platform both protects the powerful and the vulnerable equally well than a platform that protects neither or only one of them.
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#437Any chance we can make a browser extension that registers votes of and shows vote counts for installed users?
Google would fight it. But we could always side-load if they do.
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#438Hmm. For me the dislike button was informative. If feels like they are trying to create a world where everything can only be good, better, even more better, which just doesn't represent reality. Imagine Stack Overflow only having the option to upvote Questions and Answers. The ratio of likes vs dislikes of a TED talk does help me to decide if I should stop watching a video which just isn't getting better.
Removing downvotes from SO seems like it would be a net good. Instead of downvoting, people could be more encouraged to post better and more correct solutions. A good intermediate solution would be to only record downvotes that come with a comment.
It is likely I may know enough to judge a proposed solution is wrong or inadequate etc but not enough to write a better one. Vast majority of users who can down-vote would come under this category.
Encouraging them to write their own solution or even a critique/comment is not necessarily better.
You can also down vote questions not only answers, a question could be poor but it does not mean I can come up with a better one.
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#439The dislike button on YouTube videos is one of the few remaining signals that what you are seeing is propaganda. It hadn't occurred to me that this would happen (although it seems obvious) and it is unexpectedly frightening to me. I suppose the fallback will be videos with comments enabled, where people can 'like' a comment who is saying something common sense and reasonable in response to the content.
The media had ruled and controlled the western world with propaganda for the whole 20th century, from newspapers in early 1900s to TVs in late 1900s. We had a very brief period of people escaping the matrix through the internet and communicating through alternative channels, that little blip of media sandbox escape brought Trump and the Brexit and the corporates and media have been working hard to regain control of m…
I'm surprised you're getting downvoted. I thought HN was well aware of Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. Maybe not?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
See also Revolt of the Public, which explores the consequences of the internet breaking monopoly control over the flow of information. As you point out, it's the alternative channel that gave rise to unauthorized voices. What we're seeing play out is a fight between the dissenting public and the ruling elites. Removing dislikes is just the latest in a series of moves to reassert control over information.
https://www.amazon.com/Revolt-Public-Crisis-Authority-Millen...
Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube
#440The dislike button on YouTube videos is one of the few remaining signals that what you are seeing is propaganda. It hadn't occurred to me that this would happen (although it seems obvious) and it is unexpectedly frightening to me. I suppose the fallback will be videos with comments enabled, where people can 'like' a comment who is saying something common sense and reasonable in response to the content.
Except that groups have a proven track-record of assembling masses to brigade things they loudly hate. And since most people don't downvote, a determined group of downvoters can send a hyper-loud signal. Personally, I think this is all flowing from a fundamental problem: there is no concept of "credibility" with upvotes and downvotes. As conservatives are fond of saying "facts don't care about your feelings", but all…
Exactly. Public opinion polls show that the COVID vaccine is widely accepted. Yet every COVID-related video on the front page has an 80% or more dislike ratio. Antivaxxers have hijacked the dislike tool to spread their propaganda, and the correct response is to take their toys away.