The Google-owned video platform has had problems with “dislike mobs” harassing people by deliberately downvoting videos.

Source: YouTube Cracks Down On Dislike Mobs

Heh – the most disliked video in Youtube’s history turns out to be a video created and posted by Youtube itself 🙂

Youtube says it will now hide the dislike count on videos; however, as of just now, dislike counts were are still showing on the videos I checked and the change over will apparently take some time.

Viewers will still be able to click on a “dislike” – because some use that feature to indicate to The Algorithm that this is not the type of content they want to have recommended.

Youtube’s announcement can be seen through the link, here.

Update

Some are saying the dislike count is being removed to protect some specific high profile, elite Youtube content producers, that also included political accounts – meaning accounts focused on politics but also accounts of high profile politicians. The removal is “sold” to viewers as a way to protect small content producers; however, small content producers are not the ones getting hammered with lots of down votes.

Youtube argues it will not show the dislike count – in order to not influence future viewers. BUT, and this is a direct contradiction, Youtube says dislikes will be factored in to the “recommendation algorithm”. Thus, hiding dislike counts still enables “dislike mobs” to shut down a video, if they wish. Consequently, Youtube’s explanation seems weak.