6 ms·

This isn’t about small content creators. It’s almost certainly about big brands (advertisers) that hate it when their high budget movie/game/trailer/whatever ge

This isn’t about small content creators. It’s almost certainly about big brands (advertisers) that hate it when their high budget movie/game/trailer/whatever gets publicly downvoted.

wubbert 5y ago
Just like when Netflix removed their star ratings with a only a thumbs up.
- adamc 5y ago
  A small part of why I stopped using Netflix... it became harder to assess what I wanted to watch.
- dhritzkiv 5y ago
  And a thumbs down, no? That being said, there is no globally-visible '%age of viewers like this' value on each title. Instead, thumbs up/down seems to be used as probably one of many signals in the '% match' (how likely are you to enjoy it) metric.
tinalumfoil 5y ago
This could also be a pride thing for Youtube/Alphabet. For the past few years the Youtube Rewind video [0] has somewhat infamously gotten heavily downvoted, mostly I think as a reflection of how frustrated viewers are with Youtube and maybe Alphabet as well. I'm sure the executives feel some catharsis taking away an avenue for users to express that frustration. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g
- deadmutex 5y ago
  My take on it is that there is a number of diverse creators on the platform, and many YT users see a very different set of creators. E.g. You might see creators X, Y, Z and I might watch A, B, C for different topics. So, when it comes time to rewind, you can't please everyone since you'll have to pick a subset of creators. And then those who didn't see their favorite creators will be saying things like "Where was creator J? I watched so many of their videos, and they have a billion views, etc." And they might dislike the video, because they feel not represented. So, in my mind, the YT way to do rewind would be to do a custom rewind for each person (but there's no technology to automatically make a high quality video like that today). Of course, this is just my theory about a segmentation of the population. Then there are people with their own agenda, and will use the dislike button as a protest for other things. Then once it reaches some threshold, some people just like to hit the dislike button to see how far they can push it. Disclaimer: These are my own views, and not of my employer.
- ainar-g 5y ago
  Rewind is kind of old news. Now that time YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki received a Free Expression Award from an organisation sponsored by YouTube[1] is more recent and something else completely, ratio-wise. Currently at 56,502 dislikes vs 226 likes. Which is a ratio of over 250×. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k
  - ernst_10 5y ago
    [flagged]
gpt5 5y ago
Advertisers and creators already had the ability to hide likes/dislikes.
- fl0wenol 5y ago
  They explained in a related post that people were being harassed for hiding it or hiding comments... (Replace people with "brands" and we can infer their true motivation)
tapoxi 5y ago
Honestly I'm sick of every time someone posts a video suggesting vaccination it's heavily downvoted - for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc79u7ym8SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc79u7ym8SY
- deadmutex 5y ago
  Yeah, I fear that some people will see massive dislike ratio on vaccination related videos and think "oh, yeah, vaccination is really unpopular. Maybe I should be listening to what people are saying against it. I don't want to get singled out. No one is getting vaccinated" etc. It seems like it becomes a circle jerk, and a way to "protest", rather than it being an actual signal. Disclaimer: These views are entirely my own, and not of my employer.
  - benmw333 5y ago
    I think my above question was just answered here. I think YouTube is more aligned with the cultural movement of "positive things only" and only with certain ideas, i.e. COVID vaccine. I think it is a smart business idea for them.
    - deadmutex 5y ago
      > I think YouTube is more aligned with the cultural movement of "positive things only" and only with certain ideas, i.e. COVID vaccine. I don't think you can conclude that from the above. My point was that dislike ratios attacks basically abuse the feature that previously provided valuable signal to the user on whether the video was of good quality. Now, this removes the incentive for dislike ratio attacks to abuse this feature. Disclaimer: My views are my own, and not of my employer.
      - benmw333 5y ago
        It goes both ways - right? For Likes/Dislikes. Regardless, I think this is strictly a big business move - in response to perceived cultural movement.
gfosco 5y ago
Politics, too. The White House has been on the receiving end of quite a showing of popularity lately.
bko 5y ago
Whitehouse youtube also had an embarrassing number of dislikes. Dislike is incredibly useful to the user. Seeing a high dislike count on video (with some exceptions) indicates a video is likely not what it purports to be.
BenoitP 5y ago
Yup. I guess I'll use Youtube less, then. The downvote ratio contains so much information as to what video is garbage. Less than 80% approval -> I don't watch. I use a Ratings Preview chrome extension to show me the downvotes next to the thumbnails, and it will be rendered useless. I guess I'll just stop getting into Youtube rabbitholes now. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise.
- deadmutex 5y ago
  Note: the downvote ratio is a noisy (and sometimes misleading) signal. From my personal perspective, most vaccine related videos have high % of dislikes. And bunch of videos implying Ivermectine as a cure videos have a high % of likes. I think the dislike ratio is not as valuable to many of these videos. Disclaimer: My views are my own, and not of my employer.

This isn’t about small content creators. It’s almost certainly about big brands (advertisers) that hate it when their high budget movie/game/trailer/whatever gets publicly downvoted.

wubbert 5y ago

Just like when Netflix removed their star ratings with a only a thumbs up.

adamc 5y ago
A small part of why I stopped using Netflix... it became harder to assess what I wanted to watch.
dhritzkiv 5y ago
And a thumbs down, no? That being said, there is no globally-visible '%age of viewers like this' value on each title. Instead, thumbs up/down seems to be used as probably one of many signals in the '% match' (how likely are you to enjoy it) metric.

tinalumfoil 5y ago

This could also be a pride thing for Youtube/Alphabet. For the past few years the Youtube Rewind video [0] has somewhat infamously gotten heavily downvoted, mostly I think as a reflection of how frustrated viewers are with Youtube and maybe Alphabet as well. I'm sure the executives feel some catharsis taking away an avenue for users to express that frustration. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJOTdZBX1g

deadmutex 5y ago
My take on it is that there is a number of diverse creators on the platform, and many YT users see a very different set of creators. E.g. You might see creators X, Y, Z and I might watch A, B, C for different topics. So, when it comes time to rewind, you can't please everyone since you'll have to pick a subset of creators. And then those who didn't see their favorite creators will be saying things like "Where was creator J? I watched so many of their videos, and they have a billion views, etc." And they might dislike the video, because they feel not represented. So, in my mind, the YT way to do rewind would be to do a custom rewind for each person (but there's no technology to automatically make a high quality video like that today). Of course, this is just my theory about a segmentation of the population. Then there are people with their own agenda, and will use the dislike button as a protest for other things. Then once it reaches some threshold, some people just like to hit the dislike button to see how far they can push it. Disclaimer: These are my own views, and not of my employer.
ainar-g 5y ago
Rewind is kind of old news. Now that time YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki received a Free Expression Award from an organisation sponsored by YouTube[1] is more recent and something else completely, ratio-wise. Currently at 56,502 dislikes vs 226 likes. Which is a ratio of over 250×. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k
- ernst_10 5y ago
  [flagged]

gpt5 5y ago

Advertisers and creators already had the ability to hide likes/dislikes.

fl0wenol 5y ago
They explained in a related post that people were being harassed for hiding it or hiding comments... (Replace people with "brands" and we can infer their true motivation)

tapoxi 5y ago

Honestly I'm sick of every time someone posts a video suggesting vaccination it's heavily downvoted - for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc79u7ym8SY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc79u7ym8SY

deadmutex 5y ago
Yeah, I fear that some people will see massive dislike ratio on vaccination related videos and think "oh, yeah, vaccination is really unpopular. Maybe I should be listening to what people are saying against it. I don't want to get singled out. No one is getting vaccinated" etc. It seems like it becomes a circle jerk, and a way to "protest", rather than it being an actual signal. Disclaimer: These views are entirely my own, and not of my employer.
- benmw333 5y ago
  I think my above question was just answered here. I think YouTube is more aligned with the cultural movement of "positive things only" and only with certain ideas, i.e. COVID vaccine. I think it is a smart business idea for them.
  - deadmutex 5y ago
    > I think YouTube is more aligned with the cultural movement of "positive things only" and only with certain ideas, i.e. COVID vaccine. I don't think you can conclude that from the above. My point was that dislike ratios attacks basically abuse the feature that previously provided valuable signal to the user on whether the video was of good quality. Now, this removes the incentive for dislike ratio attacks to abuse this feature. Disclaimer: My views are my own, and not of my employer.
    - benmw333 5y ago
      It goes both ways - right? For Likes/Dislikes. Regardless, I think this is strictly a big business move - in response to perceived cultural movement.

gfosco 5y ago

Politics, too. The White House has been on the receiving end of quite a showing of popularity lately.

bko 5y ago

Whitehouse youtube also had an embarrassing number of dislikes. Dislike is incredibly useful to the user. Seeing a high dislike count on video (with some exceptions) indicates a video is likely not what it purports to be.

BenoitP 5y ago

Yup. I guess I'll use Youtube less, then. The downvote ratio contains so much information as to what video is garbage. Less than 80% approval -> I don't watch. I use a Ratings Preview chrome extension to show me the downvotes next to the thumbnails, and it will be rendered useless. I guess I'll just stop getting into Youtube rabbitholes now. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise.

deadmutex 5y ago
Note: the downvote ratio is a noisy (and sometimes misleading) signal. From my personal perspective, most vaccine related videos have high % of dislikes. And bunch of videos implying Ivermectine as a cure videos have a high % of likes. I think the dislike ratio is not as valuable to many of these videos. Disclaimer: My views are my own, and not of my employer.