YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim just ‘disliked’ this move. YouTube is rolling out a new feature where it will be hiding the public dislike counts on its videos in order to help protect smaller creators from distasteful comments or online harassment, a statement from the platform recently said. The new feature will be rolled out soon and only the content uploader will be able to see the dislikes in the video. This is, however not say that the actual dislike button will go away. Viewers can still dislike a particular video but it won’t be visible. The feature comes in the wake of an experiment YouTube had done earlier to check whether something like this with the ‘dislike’ button can help protect smaller content creators from harassment. Users often also indulge in purposefully disliking a video to rack up the numbers. A press release says that, YouTube “heard directly from smaller creators and those just getting started that they are unfairly targeted by this behavior."
YouTube’s Matt Koval also shared a video explaining what led to the platform’s decision and added that the platform hopes this step would be a big help for content creators. “Apparently, groups of users are targeting a video’s dislike button to drive up the count. Turning it into something like a game with a visible scoreboard. And it’s usually just because they don’t like the creator or what they stand for. That’s a big problem when half of YouTube’s mission is to give everyone a voice."
But not all of YouTube’s creators agree. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim on Tuesday updated the description of the first video uploaded to the video platform titled “Me at the Zoo" to criticize the platform’s decision to stop displaying dislikes publicly. The new description now reads, “When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is. Try again, YouTube ♂️"
Although only 18-seconds-long and shot in relatively poor quality by today’s standards, Karim’s video was the that marked the beginning of platform’s success. Titled, ‘Me at the Zoo’, Karim is seen speaking to the camera, while talking about the elephants standing right behind him. “The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks," said Karim adding, “And that’s, that’s cool."
Karim launched the American video-sharing platform in 2005 with fellow YouTube co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley, when the trio was working at PayPal. The platform remained quite unpopular until Google purchased it in 2006.
Ironically, the video YouTube had made posting about the dislike button being removed itself received much more dislikes rather than likes and while some might indeed be doing it to drive up the ‘dislike’ counts, some did explain as to why they think this move will not be a good one.
“Keep in mind other platforms don’t have a dislike button." That’s what made YouTube special now you’re just like any other platform. Well done," said one. After the feature rolls out, a creator who wishes to see their dislike counts, can do in the YouTube Studio.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram.