YouTube Says Dislikes Counts On Videos Is Harmful

Google-owned video giant, YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki has addressed YouTube users who expressed displeasure over the hide of dislike counts for videos on Tuesday.

Wojcicki stated that the harms of displaying the metric publicly surpassed the benefits in an update to creators While establishing its 2022 priorities.

Wojcicki asserted that the removal of public dislike counts was “controversial” and that some YouTube users had notified the platform that several dislikes helped them determine what videos to watch.

She explained that the company perceived that dislike counts were “harming parts of our ecosystem through dislike attacks as people actively worked to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos,” and such strikes often targeted smaller creators and those just getting started.

“We want every creator to feel they can express themselves without harassment,” Wojcicki wrote.

YouTube said it conducted a test over several months in which it removed the public dislike count across millions of videos and found no significant difference.

“Every way we looked at it, we did not see a meaningful difference in viewership, regardless of whether or not there was a public dislike count. And importantly, it reduced dislike attacks,” the CEO added.

Wojcicki pointed out that because people dislike YouTube videos for reasons “that have nothing to do with the video,” means that “it’s not always an authentic way to select videos to watch,” and YouTube had never shown dislike counts on its home page, in search results, or in the Up Next recommended video screens.