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Making the dislike count private across YouTube

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Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#741
post #67

Bummer. I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching. If I see a 3,000 up / 48 down video on a topic I'm interested in there's a really good chance the video is great. I'm a small time creator (~13.5k subs) and don't care at all about upvotes or downvotes being public. There's only been a handful of videos out of hundreds that received more downvotes than expected because the vid…

That's an interesting point. Why can this feature not be video or channel specific so that a creator who is being targetted could switch off the count if they wanted?

Because it has nothing to do with it. Explanation is a fig leaf. Check White house videos and see the real reason

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#742
I’m pretty cynical. There are a number of deeply unpopular progressive causes for which dislikes would dominate likes on YouTube. My sense is that YouTube wants to mask such information. That’s a good way to not reveal the chasm between elite opinion and popular opinion.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#743
post #67

Bummer. I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching. If I see a 3,000 up / 48 down video on a topic I'm interested in there's a really good chance the video is great. I'm a small time creator (~13.5k subs) and don't care at all about upvotes or downvotes being public. There's only been a handful of videos out of hundreds that received more downvotes than expected because the vid…

> I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching You summarized why Youtube is doing it. Sure harassment is one aspect of it, but this drives up the clicks for Youtube and therefore the ad revenue. I'd be curious to see if people get overly annoyed by how many unworthy videos they watch and thereby reducing overall engagement.

> I'd be curious to see if people get overly annoyed by how many unworthy videos they watch and thereby reducing overall engagement.

A popular streaming service inflates the ratings of the content offered on its service to the point that I'm hesitant to use it that much.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#744

Whether this is good for creators is one thing, but it's definitely bad for viewers. Likes to dislikes is an indicator of the quality of the video, and how well it matches the title/description. This will fundamentally change what I use YouTube for. If I can't determine the quality of a video without having to waste time watching it, I will just look somewhere else.

Whether it's good or bad for creator or viewers is irrelevant.

It's good for Google. That's all that matters. More crap videos will be clicked and more ads will be watched before the content starts and the user can judge wheather or not to watch.

More ads watched. That's the only consideration.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#745
post #328

People 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.

of the core voters*

There's a Venn diagram of audience and voters. Hard to know how large any of the three are, but apparently YouTube thinks the group of non-audience voters is large enough to take action against.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#746
post #67

Bummer. I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching. If I see a 3,000 up / 48 down video on a topic I'm interested in there's a really good chance the video is great. I'm a small time creator (~13.5k subs) and don't care at all about upvotes or downvotes being public. There's only been a handful of videos out of hundreds that received more downvotes than expected because the vid…

> I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching.

That's the problem. You had a tool to judge a video was worth watching without having to watching the ads.

Now you have to watch ads to find out if the video is crap. This is a very good thing. for Google

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#748
Brilliant.

People will often watch something they dislike with more intensity than something they like. The number of dislikes isn't the reason they want to watch it, it's the idea the title or cover image brings to mind. And those ideas and images are curated by Google.

Take the number of dislikes out of visibility and you strip the noise away from the signal that makes them money; views.

And who knows, the user might end up watching something that they wouldn't normally due to dislikes and, surprise, they like it. More exposure, less echo chamber-like. Less potential influence over a viewer's opinion of the content.

Re: Making the dislike count private across YouTube

#749
post #67

Bummer. I often use like vs dislike ratios as a gauge on whether a video is worth watching. If I see a 3,000 up / 48 down video on a topic I'm interested in there's a really good chance the video is great. I'm a small time creator (~13.5k subs) and don't care at all about upvotes or downvotes being public. There's only been a handful of videos out of hundreds that received more downvotes than expected because the vid…

The problem is people also use it as a propaganda tool to bury videos they don’t politically agree with. Normies have much lowered like/dislike button engagement so it’s a disservice to the vast majority.

And Google uses it as a propaganda tool to remove votes on unpopular videos they want to boost, whether there's actual money changing hands its an undeclared in-kind contribution.
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