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What is going on in the comments to this article? Why has this relatively minor youtube feature change dredged up such significant vitriol and conspiracy-adjac

What is going on in the comments to this article? Why has this relatively minor youtube feature change dredged up such significant vitriol and conspiracy-adjacent rhetoric in the hacker news comments? Skimming all the comments here I'm seeing lots of flaming and hand-wringing. I don't have any actual measures, but to me it feels like significantly more than normal even for an article about a high-profile site/company.

YinLuck- 6y ago
This change was done at the behest of the White House. If you look at the White House official YouTube channel, you will see that every video during the Biden presidency thus far has a 90%+ dislike ratio. It is obvious that a large number of people contest the legitimacy of the current regime and are using the dislike as a form of protest, so the regime is doing what all such illegitimate regimes do and censoring acts of protest.
mrzimmerman 6y ago
What bothers me is that the title is even a little misleading. They're removing the count of dislikes (which obviously has an impact) but the dislike feature itself is still there.
- shuntress 6y ago
  >What bothers me is that the title is even a little misleading. This is the exact type of comment I'm talking about. This does very little to contribute to discussion while simultaneously implying an undercurrent of conspiracy. Why even bother pointing this out? It's extremely minor at most and the link is to twitter.com. It's not as if it would take long to read the link. Just the second part of you comment: >They're removing the count of dislikes (which obviously has an impact) but the dislike feature itself is still there. would have sufficed.
- justAnIdea 6y ago
  The like/dislike feature IS NOT for the creator. Whatever Youtube claims now, the ratio always served as an indicator to other users of the platform first, feedback to the creator second. Not to mention that the way you say "i mean, you can still click a button" is incredibly elitist, dismissive and undemocratic. Having a dislike feature without publicly showing the ratio is a political equivalent of saying "Well we can't have these bottom feeders voting on something and seeing the results. We'll let them vote, sure, but then dupm the ballots into a landfill."... Anyways I'm pretty sure all this pleading to democracy and freedom will fall on deaf ears since the powers that control the US government and big tech (and I don't mean the democrats, I mean the progressives) are obsessed with control and limiting speech. I don't doubt some of these people even think dislikes are disinfo campaigns probably done by Trump voters (which is kinda implied in the tweet) and thus need to be erased from the record.
symlinkk 6y ago
Youtube is one of the most culturally significant websites on earth, and the like / dislike ratio on videos are a huge part of the experience there. I can’t believe you think it’s a “relatively minor” thing, do you never look up videos online?
- shuntress 6y ago
  A quick glance through my phone's screen time log shows that I average roughly 45 minutes per day on YouTube. Maybe I'm an atypical user but I would not call the like/dislike ratio "a huge part of the experience". I personally never look at it.

YinLuck- 6y ago

This change was done at the behest of the White House. If you look at the White House official YouTube channel, you will see that every video during the Biden presidency thus far has a 90%+ dislike ratio. It is obvious that a large number of people contest the legitimacy of the current regime and are using the dislike as a form of protest, so the regime is doing what all such illegitimate regimes do and censoring acts of protest.

mrzimmerman 6y ago

What bothers me is that the title is even a little misleading. They're removing the count of dislikes (which obviously has an impact) but the dislike feature itself is still there.

shuntress 6y ago
>What bothers me is that the title is even a little misleading. This is the exact type of comment I'm talking about. This does very little to contribute to discussion while simultaneously implying an undercurrent of conspiracy. Why even bother pointing this out? It's extremely minor at most and the link is to twitter.com. It's not as if it would take long to read the link. Just the second part of you comment: >They're removing the count of dislikes (which obviously has an impact) but the dislike feature itself is still there. would have sufficed.
justAnIdea 6y ago
The like/dislike feature IS NOT for the creator. Whatever Youtube claims now, the ratio always served as an indicator to other users of the platform first, feedback to the creator second. Not to mention that the way you say "i mean, you can still click a button" is incredibly elitist, dismissive and undemocratic. Having a dislike feature without publicly showing the ratio is a political equivalent of saying "Well we can't have these bottom feeders voting on something and seeing the results. We'll let them vote, sure, but then dupm the ballots into a landfill."... Anyways I'm pretty sure all this pleading to democracy and freedom will fall on deaf ears since the powers that control the US government and big tech (and I don't mean the democrats, I mean the progressives) are obsessed with control and limiting speech. I don't doubt some of these people even think dislikes are disinfo campaigns probably done by Trump voters (which is kinda implied in the tweet) and thus need to be erased from the record.

symlinkk 6y ago

Youtube is one of the most culturally significant websites on earth, and the like / dislike ratio on videos are a huge part of the experience there. I can’t believe you think it’s a “relatively minor” thing, do you never look up videos online?

shuntress 6y ago
A quick glance through my phone's screen time log shows that I average roughly 45 minutes per day on YouTube. Maybe I'm an atypical user but I would not call the like/dislike ratio "a huge part of the experience". I personally never look at it.