If you haven’t heard yet, YouTube has announced that while they’re going to keep the dislike button, they’re going to eliminate the counter that shows how many people have disliked the video. YouTube’s users have already expressed their anger toward this decision but it would appear that its creator is also weighing in as well, and he too doesn’t approve.
According to YouTube, the point behind it is to stop what they deem to be dislike brigades who use the button to target creators they don’t like. They claim that it’s used as a form of harassment and that by eliminating the dislike counter they’re putting a stop to this bullying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOuG8jMIgI
Many speculated as to the motive behind the concealment of the dislike count. Most believed that the intention was to safeguard brands against negative reactions if their advertising campaigns provoke anger.
For instance, Gillette’s short film about “toxic masculinity” was so unpopular that many people expressed their displeasure by disliking the video they posted to YouTube. At the time of writing, it has received over 1.6million dislikes and more than 835K likes. It’s not good for brands to receive this level of criticism about their campaign.
This ill-conceived stunt cost Gillette its parent company Proctor and Gamble over $5 billion. But I digress.
Funny thing is, the YouTube video announcement above has over 151K dislikes and 14K likes as of writing, but I digress.
YouTube’s co-founder Jawed Karim also weighed in, calling it a “stupid idea.”
The comment can be found on Karim’s YouTube channel where only a single video can be found; the first video ever uploaded to YouTube some 16 years ago of Karim commenting on elephants. In the description of the video, Karim edited it to read “When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is. Try again, YouTube.”
YouTube does a terrible thing by doing it. There have been instances when the dislike button was misused. That much is true, but what constitutes abuse and what counts as rejection from audiences shouldn’t be mixed up. Recalling the Gillette commercial. Men, and even women had every right not to like a Gillette advertisement that depicted them as toxic or disappointing. It was an insulting ad created by a radical feminist company and Gillette’s (former) customers were right to express their disapproval that the company would do such a thing.
However, if we pull back a bit further, we can see that it’s probably not the will to protect brands that helped YouTube reach this decision. While it could have been an important part of the decision, it is unlikely to be the sole reason.
It was probably trying to defend the Biden administration, and its allies. This is why almost every video that attempts to promote them is getting downvoted. National Geographic’s Fauci documentary and Disney Plus are both extremely disliked and highly rated, with these statistics clearly visible. A majority of the videos being released right now are being demolished by users.
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YouTube and its parent company Google have not made any attempt to conceal their political views. They’ve also made it very clear that when it comes to narratives about things like Fauci and the COVID-19 virus, they won’t be playing around in their defense of the left’s narrative. Rand Paul, Senator and doctor was suspended from his account after he posted a video discussing science behind masks.
Paul returned fire, questioning “when YouTube became an arm of the government” and slammed YouTube and Google for believing they were the “arbitrator of truth.”
Rand Paul makes an excellent point about YouTube after he was suspended over COVID-19 talk
YouTube can claim it’s eliminating its dislike count for noble reasons, but all evidence points toward an attempt to silence dissent against leftist narratives and causes.
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