YouTube to hide public dislike counts on videos

YouTube has released a much-needed update that will be very beneficial to the creators of the entire website. The company has announced that it will stop showing dislike counts in videos. This does not mean that users will not see the dislike button or will not be able to use it, it just means that the dislike count will not be visible to visitors. The company says this step would protect creators from targeted harassment.

People often abuse YouTube to carry out their personal revenge against an actor or an influencer. People from groups in large numbers and deliberately press the dislike button on a video of a person who does not like them. Sometimes the only reason for these groups is to increase the dislike count. When all of Bollywood was attacked after the untimely death of Sushant Singh Rajput, users intentionally pressed the dislike button on any video featuring the best Bollywood actors, including Salman Khan or any song from Karan Johar's movie. However, things are changing now on YouTube and they are changing forever. The dislike count that many people imagined will no longer be visible.

YouTube blog read, "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."

The blog shared, "Based on what we learned, we're making the dislike counts private across YouTube, but the dislike button is not going away. This change will start gradually rolling out today."

YouTube revealed in its blog post that many small and new creators were unfairly targeted. The company confirmed that online harassment occurs at a higher rate on smaller channels.