YouTube has introduced a much-needed update that will greatly benefit the website’s creators. The company has stated that it would no longer display hate counts on videos. This does not mean that users will not notice or be able to use the dislike button; it only means that the dislike count will not be visible to visitors. According to the company, this action will shield the creators from targeted harassment.
People frequently misuse YouTube to start personal vendettas against celebrities or influencers. People from huge groups purposefully push the hate button in a video of someone they hate. Sometimes the only goal of such groups is to increase the number of people who dislike them. When the whole of Bollywood was attacked following Sushant Singh Rajput’s tragic death, individuals purposefully pressed the hate button on any video featuring famous Bollywood stars such as Salman Khan or any film song from Karan Johar’s film. However, things are changing on YouTube, and they are changing for the better. The dislike count, which a lot of people liked, will no longer be available.
“Earlier this year, we experimented with the dislike button to see whether or not changes could help better protect our creators from harassment, and reduce dislike attacks — where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos. As part of this experiment, viewers could still see and use the dislike button. But because the count was not visible to them, we found that they were less likely to target a video’s dislike button to drive up the count. In short, our experiment data showed a reduction in dislike attacking behaviour,” YouTube blog read.
YouTube stated in a blog post that many small and first time creators were unfairly targeted. The company verified that online abuse occurs in larger numbers on smaller channels.
