YouTube is experimenting on hiding the public display of the number of dislikes. This is in an effort to promote the well being of content creators.
Currently, viewers can see the number of likes and dislikes on any video. According to YouTube, this can impact the content creator negatively and “may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video”. The move is meant to discourage what the company terms as “dislike mobs” who deliberately dislike videos from specific creators and channel.
Read: YouTube Testing a New Way For Users to Shop On The Videos
YouTube creators use the like and dislike buttons to gauge the reception of their content. However, the feature has been abused as it has become a tool to target specific content creators. The high number of dislikes depict the targeted videos negatively demotivating content creators.
Viewers will still be able to upvote and downvote a video, only that the number of dislikes will be hidden from the public.
Although Instagram does not have a dislike button, it experimented with hiding users’ number of likes. The feature is now optional for users.
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