YouTube has announced that it will cease to disclose the number of dislikes a video has received to the public starting today. The company stated the intention behind the change of not being able to view the number of dislikes a video has accumulated is to stop smaller content creators from abusive targeting with dislike bombardment and avoiding harassment. YouTube stated it would rather "...create an inclusive and respectful environment where creators have the opportunity to succeed and feel safe to express themselves."
Content creators will still be able to view the exact number of dislike counts in YouTube Studio if they wish to see how their content is being received. This would allow for the creator to receive the feedback privately and act accordingly without the public shaming of number of dislikes. While creators do rely on the like and dislike feedback in order to understand what viewers opinions are and, if needed, adjust accordingly. The issue is the dislike system has become more of a tool to harass and abuse creators without providing any meaningful feedback for creators to improve their content.
It seems YouTube has played more of an active role in its community with an announcement of improvements to search results, and has played an active part in the removal of over a million videos containing coronavirus and virus misinformation.
This does seemingly draw a strong callback to a classic Neowin article about a rap song becoming the most disliked Russian YouTube video of its time, garnering over 16.69 million dislikes. If you want to relive a list of most disliked videos on YouTube, you can refer to this Wikipedia page, which seems destined to become a historical record, for as long as they keep it that is.
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