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YouTube announced today that it will start testing what could end up being a significant change to its video platform: it will try to hide the dislike number on videos from public view. The company says it will run a “little experiment” in which it will try out a few different designs where the dislike counts are no longer displayed, but none will see the “Dislike” button itself entirely removed.
The company announced the tests on Twitter, but then further explains in a community forum post that the goal is not to remove the ability for users to report they don’t like a video – creators will still have access to the number of YouTube Studio’s “likes” and “dislikes” and “dislikes” will always help keep YouTube going. recommendation algorithms.
Instead, YouTube says the idea of trying to hide dislikes is based on comments from the creators.
“We’ve heard from creators say that the amount of audience dislikes can impact their well-being and can motivate a targeted disgust campaign on a creator’s video,” the ad read. “So we are testing designs that do not include the number of visible positives or negatives in an effort to balance improving the creator’s experience, while ensuring that viewer feedback is considered and shared with the creator. “
Of course, there can be some sort of crowd mentality that comes with using the Like and Dislike buttons on YouTube. But seeing the dislike count can also help signal others when the videos are clickbait, spam, or misleading information, which can be helpful.
YouTube showed off a potential design under testing that just shows the same button layout, but instead of a number of dislikes, the word “I don’t like” appears below the thumbs down icon.
There will be no way to turn off the test if you see the changes appear while logged in to YouTube – you will only be able to share comments, the company notes.
To be clear, however, YouTube hasn’t made a commitment to remove everyone’s dislike count just yet. Feedback from this test will help YouTube know if, when, and how it will release designs like this more widely.
YouTube wouldn’t be the first to try to remove metrics from a social app. Instagram also tested removing the number of positive engagements (likes), in order to make the experience more authentic and less focused on continuing to influence. And Facebook this year removed the “Like” button from Facebook pages, in favor of a more precise measurement of “followers”. However, in the case of removing only the number of dislikes and not the likes, viewers may misunderstand the true popularity of a video.
The company told TechCrunch that testing will be run around the world over the next few weeks on Android and iOS, while collecting feedback from a handful of designs.
Updated 03/30/21, 6pm and to add launch details.
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