YouTube testing to hide dislikes in videos from creators

YouTube is experimenting with hiding "dislikes" in videos from creators to deter "dislike crowds" from "deliberately rejecting videos" from channels and creators. This particular experiment is slightly different from other solutions YouTube had previously thought of to prevent disliked mobs from downloading a video. Still, it is similar to the attempts other platforms like Instagram have made to stop these targeted attacks from the beginning.

As YouTube announced, in experimental settings, the likes and dislikes statistics will be visible on the individual YouTube Studio page of the creator/channel. However, will be publicly displayed only the likes in the video.

YouTube explained in an article that "Dislikes" can negatively affect a creator's well-being and can motivate specific "Dislike" campaigns on their videos. The idea is that for the dislike mob, seeing the number of dislikes and seeing it go up is enough motivation to join in and add it.

Creators rely on these likes and dislike as a form of feedback to guide their work; however, targeted attacks can quickly turn this helpful feature into something abusive.

Initially, when YouTube announced that it was looking to address this specific dislike problem, they had thought of three ideas:

1) Hide the number of likes and dislikes.

2) Add more interaction before you can dislike something.

3) Remove the likes and dislikes entirely.

This current test does half the first idea and makes some sense. Since the amount of dislikes is an issue, it makes sense to hide it. This is similar to Instagram testing on whether you should hide the number of likes on a post.

As The Verge points out, likes are inherently positive, but chasing high likes counts can negatively impact.

For now, YouTube is not trying to hide what I don't like in the videos of all the creators, but if you see it in your suffering and have an opinion on it, you can let YouTube know your comments here.