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Oh I know, I am pretty cynical and not exactly outraged here. But although they don't care about what's good for us, they do care about what will keep us on the

Oh I know, I am pretty cynical and not exactly outraged here. But although they don't care about what's good for us, they do care about what will keep us on the platform. And if it gets harder to find good stuff and filter out the dross, that could conceivably have negative consequences for YouTube in the long run.

CyberRabbi 6y ago
They hate us. The little guy. No criticism allowed
EricE 6y ago
I'm not outraged - I'm amused. The ultimate admission the only way they can spread their messaging is through force, not honest competition of ideas. How superior. Nothing proves you have a worthy argument better than outright hiding from dissent. Again, they don't care if you stay on the platform. If they did, they wouldn't touch it. The disagreement buttons were added in the first place because they increase and maintain engagement. After a few decades it's now all the sudden a problem? Ha! The real problem is their desired narratives are being soundly rejected and it's embarrassing. So here we are.
- retsibsi 6y ago
  > Again, they don't care if you stay on the platform. Why not? Even if you're right that they care more about propaganda than money, what's the point of propagandising to an empty room?
  - EricE 6y ago
    If logic were involved we wouldn't be having a discussion about removing dislikes in the first place, no? :)
    - retsibsi 6y ago
      Come on, I'm trying not to dismiss your perspective just because it sounds a bit conspiratorial, but this is not convincing. Are you saying the YouTube execs (or whoever is leaning on them) are just acting emotionally with no strategy?
      - EricE 6y ago
        There is absolutely a strategy - there is a particular point of view they favor, and anything counter to it is removed. Dislikes are embarrassing to, for lack of better terminology, their pet causes. Simply disabling them on certain videos or channels calls even more attention to them - so why not just remove them entirely. The only thing surprising to me is that it took them this long.
        jasonfarnon 6y ago
        It doesn't need to be that dislikes are embarrassing to their pet causes. There were a few instances where business partners would, e.g., post an ad campaign that got so many dislikes the dislike ratio entered the news cycle. I'm sure google gets pressure from their business/ad partners when that goes down.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        Wouldn't business partners be a trivial subset of their pet causes? It's not just a political set.
        markdown 6y ago
        What a silly conspiracy theory. If the wanted to hide embarrassing downvotes on certain videos, they'd just remove those downvotes, not the entire feature.
        lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        They do that too
  - bobthechef 6y ago
    People won't leave that easily. Nobody compares to YouTube. Facebook had no way of voicing disapproval for a long time and membership still increased. They are testing various options which might mean they're weighting the relative benefits and damage. And besides, they may be in a position where they have no choice if propaganda is more important than money.
    - asiachick 6y ago
      facebook still has no way to voice disapproval. They have like, love, care, haha, wow, sad, angry Angry != disapprove because in the context of the other "emotions" it does not distinguish between disliking the post itself, or what it's referencing. If you post "Candidate X did Y" are you angry because the candidate did Y or because your friend posted something anti candidate X?
- bobthechef 6y ago
  > The ultimate admission the only way they can spread their messaging is through force, not honest competition of ideas. How superior. > Nothing proves you have a worthy argument better than outright hiding from dissent. I don't know the general trends across YouTube or why they would do this. Certainly, they've also been silencing views they and certain influential groups advising them don't like, and I've seen videos put out by connected establishment and moneyed milieu downvoted into oblivion. But value and truth are not determined through popular vote. It might coincide, or it might not. So the only way I can understand your comment is to suppose that downvoting of "preferred" YouTube content has gotten so severe that the company wishes to prevent the communication of exactly how much disapproval there really is for the "official narrative" (while potentially keeping track of it themselves) because once someone knows he's not alone in his disapproval, he might just have more confidence to resist or leave a comment that spreads a message unfavorable to them. So yes, dislikes might increase engagement, but it might not be the kind of engagement they want to facilitate.
  - amznthrwaway 6y ago
    Get professional help. You are mentally unwell. Fuck you, and fuck your anti-semitism.
  - da_big_ghey 6y ago
    > downvoting of "preferred" YouTube content has gotten so severe that the company wishes to prevent the communication of exactly how much disapproval there really is for the "official narrative" This is exact reason. Go to you tube home page and every day there is bar of "official sources" news on coronavirus (clips from news stations). Here are first four for this day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USE5USAodiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USE5USAodiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4kqSV1p3T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4kqSV1p3T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOL9ek7Tys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOL9ek7Tys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DpzcMZPTqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DpzcMZPTqA Noticing here, each and every has more dislike than like.
    - WillPostForFood 6y ago
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  Who is “they”? You appear to have lept to some very extreme conclusions without anything resembling supporting data.
- kbenson 6y ago
  To be clear, they aren't removing the button, or a way for users to register their dislike or track that they already disliked a video (I assume), just the count of how many other people disliked it. As a matter of engagement, I'm not sure how much that statistic brings to the table. I agree it might make filtering out crap content somewhat harder, but I'm not sure how good it ever was for that. It might be that the vast majority of the time it indicated anything to the viewer it indicated that some campaign was underway, which generally is counterproductive as a viewer. Personally, I upvote if I liked something, and I don't indicate anything if I didn't find it all that interesting or useful. Rarely if ever have I disliked something that youtube has recommended to me. The few times I have it's probably been because of some outside source noting it because it's objectionable. How useful of a signal is that to youtube or the creator? In that case it indicates what people that don't care about their content and aren't likely to watch any more of it think. That seems a poor source of feedback (and if we're talking about hat being useful to indicate to them that they shouldn't have done whatever they did, that's obviously served already by many other mechanisms, including comments).
  - drdeca 6y ago
    Personally, I have frequently wished that the downvote button on youtube _comments_ wasn’t fake. (Last I heard, it currently doesn’t even send a packet to any servers when you click it. It used to, until google+ iirc [edit: see correction/update provided by voussoir in the reply. Turns out it does now. Thanks for the update/correction.]) The inability to downvote substantially alters what is said/ranked highly, I think.
    - voussoir 6y ago
      > Last I heard, it currently doesn’t even send a packet to any servers when you click it. Just tested. It makes a post to /youtubei/v1/comment/perform_comment_action with a parameter ?key and a payload containing "actions" both of which are long alphanumeric strings.
      - drdeca 6y ago
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  what narratives are being rejected?
city41 6y ago
A while back they significantly increased the number of ads and also now show YouTube premium popups constantly. I would imagine it's had very little if any negative impact. Google knows YouTube is the only game in town.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  For now, but if they keep treating users like shit, it creates a bigger and bigger opportunity for competition to pop in. You might be thinking it's super hard for someone like you or I to create a YouTube competitor. That's probably true, but what about Amazon or Netflix? Can you imagine if Netflix had a YouTube-like platform where, if you're a subscriber, you get no ads?
  - city41 6y ago
    That's a good point. Who really knows, but possibly Google just doesn't see that coming, or at least not any time soon. A true competitor to YouTube would really do consumers and creators a lot of good though.
    - tachyonbeam 6y ago
      Seems like it should be a market inevitability. There are just so many things wrong with YouTube. The main obstacle is the bandwidth cost, and that's not an issue for any major tech company. I think Facebook could actually properly compete with YouTube if they wanted, it's just that their insistence that you have to be logged in to access content makes it much less appealing as a platform, because you can't just link people to videos easily.
      - plerpin 6y ago
        >The main obstacle is the bandwidth cost ...hence the ads? How would competitors be immune to the need to pay the bills?
        6y ago
RandallBrown 6y ago
They probably think that dislikes aren't actually a good signal for whether or not a video is relevant to a uer. Crappy videos could automatically be filtered out of their search and recommendations because people abandon them early. They may have determined that's enough to help user's find what they need. It also helps the issue of dislike brigading since you won't be able to "dislike" a video at all. Not sure if that's the right move or not but I don't think it's necessarily a bad one.
jacurtis 6y ago
> they do care about what will keep us on the platform Yes they do. Watching 2 useless DIY videos and then a 3rd DIY video that finally helped you out, just kept you on the platform 3x longer than if you had filtered out the badly rated one and watched the helpful video first. Checkmate. YouTube/Google/Alphabet Wins! 3x the ads. 3x the money. 3x the evil. Do not pass go, Google collects your $200. Time to hide the dislike counts... case closed.

CyberRabbi 6y ago

They hate us. The little guy. No criticism allowed

EricE 6y ago

I'm not outraged - I'm amused. The ultimate admission the only way they can spread their messaging is through force, not honest competition of ideas. How superior. Nothing proves you have a worthy argument better than outright hiding from dissent. Again, they don't care if you stay on the platform. If they did, they wouldn't touch it. The disagreement buttons were added in the first place because they increase and maintain engagement. After a few decades it's now all the sudden a problem? Ha! The real problem is their desired narratives are being soundly rejected and it's embarrassing. So here we are.

retsibsi 6y ago
> Again, they don't care if you stay on the platform. Why not? Even if you're right that they care more about propaganda than money, what's the point of propagandising to an empty room?
- EricE 6y ago
  If logic were involved we wouldn't be having a discussion about removing dislikes in the first place, no? :)
  - retsibsi 6y ago
    Come on, I'm trying not to dismiss your perspective just because it sounds a bit conspiratorial, but this is not convincing. Are you saying the YouTube execs (or whoever is leaning on them) are just acting emotionally with no strategy?
    - EricE 6y ago
      There is absolutely a strategy - there is a particular point of view they favor, and anything counter to it is removed. Dislikes are embarrassing to, for lack of better terminology, their pet causes. Simply disabling them on certain videos or channels calls even more attention to them - so why not just remove them entirely. The only thing surprising to me is that it took them this long.
      - jasonfarnon 6y ago
        It doesn't need to be that dislikes are embarrassing to their pet causes. There were a few instances where business partners would, e.g., post an ad campaign that got so many dislikes the dislike ratio entered the news cycle. I'm sure google gets pressure from their business/ad partners when that goes down.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        Wouldn't business partners be a trivial subset of their pet causes? It's not just a political set.
      - markdown 6y ago
        What a silly conspiracy theory. If the wanted to hide embarrassing downvotes on certain videos, they'd just remove those downvotes, not the entire feature.
        lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        They do that too
- bobthechef 6y ago
  People won't leave that easily. Nobody compares to YouTube. Facebook had no way of voicing disapproval for a long time and membership still increased. They are testing various options which might mean they're weighting the relative benefits and damage. And besides, they may be in a position where they have no choice if propaganda is more important than money.
  - asiachick 6y ago
    facebook still has no way to voice disapproval. They have like, love, care, haha, wow, sad, angry Angry != disapprove because in the context of the other "emotions" it does not distinguish between disliking the post itself, or what it's referencing. If you post "Candidate X did Y" are you angry because the candidate did Y or because your friend posted something anti candidate X?
bobthechef 6y ago
> The ultimate admission the only way they can spread their messaging is through force, not honest competition of ideas. How superior. > Nothing proves you have a worthy argument better than outright hiding from dissent. I don't know the general trends across YouTube or why they would do this. Certainly, they've also been silencing views they and certain influential groups advising them don't like, and I've seen videos put out by connected establishment and moneyed milieu downvoted into oblivion. But value and truth are not determined through popular vote. It might coincide, or it might not. So the only way I can understand your comment is to suppose that downvoting of "preferred" YouTube content has gotten so severe that the company wishes to prevent the communication of exactly how much disapproval there really is for the "official narrative" (while potentially keeping track of it themselves) because once someone knows he's not alone in his disapproval, he might just have more confidence to resist or leave a comment that spreads a message unfavorable to them. So yes, dislikes might increase engagement, but it might not be the kind of engagement they want to facilitate.
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  Get professional help. You are mentally unwell. Fuck you, and fuck your anti-semitism.
- da_big_ghey 6y ago
  > downvoting of "preferred" YouTube content has gotten so severe that the company wishes to prevent the communication of exactly how much disapproval there really is for the "official narrative" This is exact reason. Go to you tube home page and every day there is bar of "official sources" news on coronavirus (clips from news stations). Here are first four for this day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USE5USAodiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USE5USAodiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4kqSV1p3T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4kqSV1p3T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOL9ek7Tys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmOL9ek7Tys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DpzcMZPTqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DpzcMZPTqA Noticing here, each and every has more dislike than like.
  - WillPostForFood 6y ago
amznthrwaway 6y ago
Who is “they”? You appear to have lept to some very extreme conclusions without anything resembling supporting data.
kbenson 6y ago
To be clear, they aren't removing the button, or a way for users to register their dislike or track that they already disliked a video (I assume), just the count of how many other people disliked it. As a matter of engagement, I'm not sure how much that statistic brings to the table. I agree it might make filtering out crap content somewhat harder, but I'm not sure how good it ever was for that. It might be that the vast majority of the time it indicated anything to the viewer it indicated that some campaign was underway, which generally is counterproductive as a viewer. Personally, I upvote if I liked something, and I don't indicate anything if I didn't find it all that interesting or useful. Rarely if ever have I disliked something that youtube has recommended to me. The few times I have it's probably been because of some outside source noting it because it's objectionable. How useful of a signal is that to youtube or the creator? In that case it indicates what people that don't care about their content and aren't likely to watch any more of it think. That seems a poor source of feedback (and if we're talking about hat being useful to indicate to them that they shouldn't have done whatever they did, that's obviously served already by many other mechanisms, including comments).
- drdeca 6y ago
  Personally, I have frequently wished that the downvote button on youtube _comments_ wasn’t fake. (Last I heard, it currently doesn’t even send a packet to any servers when you click it. It used to, until google+ iirc [edit: see correction/update provided by voussoir in the reply. Turns out it does now. Thanks for the update/correction.]) The inability to downvote substantially alters what is said/ranked highly, I think.
  - voussoir 6y ago
    > Last I heard, it currently doesn’t even send a packet to any servers when you click it. Just tested. It makes a post to /youtubei/v1/comment/perform_comment_action with a parameter ?key and a payload containing "actions" both of which are long alphanumeric strings.
    - drdeca 6y ago
AshWolfy 6y ago
what narratives are being rejected?

city41 6y ago

A while back they significantly increased the number of ads and also now show YouTube premium popups constantly. I would imagine it's had very little if any negative impact. Google knows YouTube is the only game in town.

tachyonbeam 6y ago
For now, but if they keep treating users like shit, it creates a bigger and bigger opportunity for competition to pop in. You might be thinking it's super hard for someone like you or I to create a YouTube competitor. That's probably true, but what about Amazon or Netflix? Can you imagine if Netflix had a YouTube-like platform where, if you're a subscriber, you get no ads?
- city41 6y ago
  That's a good point. Who really knows, but possibly Google just doesn't see that coming, or at least not any time soon. A true competitor to YouTube would really do consumers and creators a lot of good though.
  - tachyonbeam 6y ago
    Seems like it should be a market inevitability. There are just so many things wrong with YouTube. The main obstacle is the bandwidth cost, and that's not an issue for any major tech company. I think Facebook could actually properly compete with YouTube if they wanted, it's just that their insistence that you have to be logged in to access content makes it much less appealing as a platform, because you can't just link people to videos easily.
    - plerpin 6y ago
      >The main obstacle is the bandwidth cost ...hence the ads? How would competitors be immune to the need to pay the bills?
      - 6y ago

RandallBrown 6y ago

They probably think that dislikes aren't actually a good signal for whether or not a video is relevant to a uer. Crappy videos could automatically be filtered out of their search and recommendations because people abandon them early. They may have determined that's enough to help user's find what they need. It also helps the issue of dislike brigading since you won't be able to "dislike" a video at all. Not sure if that's the right move or not but I don't think it's necessarily a bad one.

jacurtis 6y ago

> they do care about what will keep us on the platform Yes they do. Watching 2 useless DIY videos and then a 3rd DIY video that finally helped you out, just kept you on the platform 3x longer than if you had filtered out the badly rated one and watched the helpful video first. Checkmate. YouTube/Google/Alphabet Wins! 3x the ads. 3x the money. 3x the evil. Do not pass go, Google collects your $200. Time to hide the dislike counts... case closed.