YouTube today announced its decision to make the dislike button count on videos private across its platform. The controversial move seems like a response by YouTube in an attempt at protecting their creators from harassment and reducing what they call “likes attacks.”
YouTube says it’s not removing the dislike button itself, but users can click thumbs down on videos to private signal their displeasure. Creators will be able to track dislikes in Studio alongside other analytics about video performance if they choose to.
Youtube has been testing ways to remove the dislike button
YouTube is making a change that will reduce the number of attacks on its creators. They did this following an experiment earlier in 2021 where they aimed to see if these sorts of changes would lead towards fewer dislike attacks and general harassment from viewers, while also considering creator safety with more stringent standards for reporting problems like bullying amongst other things across various channels.
YouTube has been trying to figure out how the public can be more helpful for creators. They realized that dislikes help when videos are clickbait, spam, or misleading but they also affect a creator’s well-being because of their negative feedback on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
YouTube said it had also heard from smaller creators and others who were just getting started on the platform that they felt like they were being targeted unfairly by dislike attacks. The experiment confirmed this was true — channels with a lower subscriber count received more abusive comments than those of higher regard in their field, according to YouTube data analyzed through Crowdtangle analytical tools.
The company had experimented with different designs for removing the dislike counts, including one where “Dislike” appears underneath their thumbs down button instead of just an actual number.
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Dealing with social media influencers is not always easy. Actually, most of the time, companies and influencers can’t communicate clearly, as there is a lack of a cultural, linguistic, and social bridge that connects both.
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It is really hard to keep up with the constant changes in the pop culture and in the internet world, so contacting an agency whose job is to always be updated about what the influencers are doing, how is the stability in the country, and more important information for your company, is the best strategy.