[HN Gopher] YouTube to Remove Dislikes ___________________________________________________________________ YouTube to Remove Dislikes Author : Jerry2 Score : 157 points Date : 2021-03-31 21:07 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | retsibsi wrote: | This seems rather user-hostile. The downvote count is useful for | identifying videos that aren't what they claim to be. And how | about DIY videos that give terrible advice? A big downvote ratio | will get most people's attention in a way that critical comments | may not. | tayo42 wrote: | Are people really using votes like that? You putting your trust | in deciding quality in a vote count? There's so much wrong with | that. | TheTrotters wrote: | It's the worst solution except for every other we've ever | tried. | EricE wrote: | Your first mistake was thinking that you are the user they care | about serving :p | paulcole wrote: | Can you clarify this for me? I have always assumed that since | I'm the one watching the video I'm their customer/user? | retsibsi wrote: | 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 wrote: | They hate us. The little guy. No criticism allowed | EricE wrote: | 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 wrote: | > 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? | mancerayder wrote: | .. combined with the idea that there's much of an | alternative. If the content creators I like are there... | retsibsi wrote: | In the short run they can get away with ~anything. In the | long run though, anything that upsets users makes the rise | of a true competitor marginally more likely. | munk-a wrote: | Hrm - maybe this is deserving of some public health lawsuits | for any anti-vaxxer videos that slip through their content | filter and end up hitting trending. | | Youtubers have mentioned that up/down votes seem to have very | little effect on video surfacing so I think Youtube has already | figured out that folks are heavily biased in up/down voting and | removed it from any algorithmic uses. | motbob wrote: | I agree that removing public dislikes is a pretty bad idea, but | it's not that important of a tool in fighting misleading | videos. I mean, there was once a HUGE glut of videos with | misleading thumbnails/titles, and what stopped the glut was not | dislikes, but rather Youtube's use of watch time as an | important metric. | retsibsi wrote: | Fair point, but I think downvotes have been useful to me | relatively recently. Fake videos may not show up in | recommendation feeds, but they still appear in search results | don't they? (And if you're searching for something relatively | obscure, you can realistically hit the bottom of the barrel, | rather than only seeing the more highly rated results.) | mrkramer wrote: | >Fake videos may not show up in recommendation feeds, but | they still appear in search results don't they? | | Use report button | retsibsi wrote: | I would for anything truly extreme (like some horrible | shock footage in the middle of a supposedly innocent | video). But I don't know if all of these videos actually | violate any rules; often they are of the kind <title: | THING YOU'RE LOOKING FOR>, where the content is actually | someone talking _about_ the thing I 'm looking for. | | edit: Or another relatively common type, not necessarily | fake or even strictly misleading, just cynically low- | quality: a video made by pulling some text content from | the web, feeding it through a speech synthesiser, and | playing that over over the top of some 'relevant' images. | mrkramer wrote: | When you are reporting a video there is "Spam or | misleading" option but then again you are left with | YouTube algorithm deciding whether video is really "spam | or misleading" or it is malicious report. | | For the past couple of months I was regularly reporting | group of spammers spamming links in comment sections but | to this day I still see them running amok. | HenryBemis wrote: | From a YT standpoint, if I am looking for "interview of | HenryBemis" and there are 10 likes and 1000 dislikes, it | means that this is probably NOT the video, but someone | commenting on the video (e.g. I wanted to see the Oprah- | Harry-Meghan video). | | If YT removes the dislikes from the public eye, I will either | have to scroll ahead, OR watch 5-10mins waiting for the thing | to start, then go and try some other video. | | YT increases user engagement (I have already watched 10mins | of one video and now heading for the next.. and the next.. | and the next..). So, for YT this is a win-win.. it's the user | that gets tricked. | | Bravo YT, well played (not!) | retsibsi wrote: | > if I am looking for "interview of HenryBemis" and there | are 10 likes and 1000 dislikes, it means that this is | probably NOT the video, but someone commenting on the video | | This is the sort of thing I had in mind. Some of it is | complete junk and some is probably interesting to some | people, but the titles are sufficiently misleading to | attract an eye-catching number of downvotes. I can't | remember exactly when I last came across this kind of | content, but it was definitely quite recently, so I don't | think youtube has stamped it out. | Sodman wrote: | You see this _very_ frequently in DIY how-to videos. | There 's usually about ~30-60 seconds of very helpful | instructional content, buried somewhere towards the end | of an 11 minute video of rambling and common knowledge. I | suspect largely because the monetization gets better if | your video is longer than 10 mins... | duskwuff wrote: | > I mean, there was once a HUGE glut of videos with | misleading thumbnails/titles | | Oh, that's still happening. It never stopped. | motbob wrote: | If the problem still exists, it's way less noticeable than | it was in 2010. | retsibsi wrote: | Oh if you're going back that far, then yes, it definitely | still exists, though I don't doubt it used to be a lot | worse. (I phrased my first response carefully in case | there had been changes in, say, the past few months that | I hadn't fully noticed.) | tjoff wrote: | The reason downvotes didn't solve that issue was because you | couldn't see the ratio until after you had clicked. | | There was plugins that showed it when browsing and it made | such a difference. | aquadrop wrote: | Dislikes are good not just for identifying bad videos, but | also good videos. You can see it in the like/dislike ratio. | The higher the better, videos with ratio around >98-99% have | very high probability of being good etc | Waterluvian wrote: | Now that I think of it, Twitter doesn't have downvotes and I've | never struggled to tell a bad tweet from its ratio. | vkou wrote: | A bad tweet is obvious because it's easy to digest. | | Unfortunately, the 'dislike' signal on a YouTube video | doesn't tell me if it's because an expert disagrees with its | content, or because the creator is being brigaded, or because | the downvoters disagree with their politics (related or | unrelated). | | The comments are a better signal, but looking through them | requires reading... YouTube comments. | Waterluvian wrote: | I'm not sure bad videos are any harder to digest than bad | tweets. Maybe a bit more time consuming? | hnick wrote: | Yes, if I am trying to fix my dishwasher and I see a | video with a high dislike ratio I will move on because at | best it's probably a time waster and at worst dangerous. | | My options now would be to spend a minute or two watching | it or reading the comments (engagement!), which may not | exist on some niche videos you run across for things like | this. This adds up when browsing. Don't forget creators | can disable comments too. | [deleted] | mrkramer wrote: | I think that YouTube algorithms are so smart right now that | YouTube doesn't need dislike button anymore it can simply rank | bad videos so low that you don't even know they exist. | | Edit: YouTube algorithms are so smart* I was exaggerating using | hyperbole(figure of speech) in order to imply strong impression | and feeling that YouTube algorithms are good enough for YouTube | to afford dismissing dislike button. | | Instagram is doing fine with likes only so I don't see a reason | why YouTube wouldn't. Go to comment section to say what is | wrong with the video you are watching or use report button if | the video is violating TOS. | Answerawake wrote: | Seems like an opportunity to create a browser extension to have | crowd sourced upvote/downvotes kind of like Reddit masstagger. | Wonder if there is a way to ensure that upvote/downvotes are | not tampered with on the server side. | causality0 wrote: | Companies are only interested in user behavior that increases | engagement. Everything else is on the chopping block. | justaguy88 wrote: | s/engagement/addiction/ | EricE wrote: | Downvotes increase engagement. Otherwise they wouldn't have | been put there in the first place. | | No, the real issue here is too many of the "right" things are | getting downvoted. So when The White House, Disney or the | Academy disable downvotes on part or all of their videos but | other wide swaths of videos don't need to disable downvotes, | the contrast causes them to stick out like a sore thumb. | | It calls attention (also known as engagement) - but not the | kind of attention those who run social media companies want. | Attention that is counter to the desired narratives is | unacceptable. So here we go with the lame excuses that are | all the sudden relevant when they weren't when the | like/dislike stuff was instated decades ago? | | Give me a break. | jetpks wrote: | You are all over this thread claiming that the White House | is explicitly pressuring Google to remove this feature of | the site. Do you have supporting evidence, or did you just | make this up? It seems more like you have a narrative and | agenda to push. | retsibsi wrote: | Yep. I think this is the sort of thing that could potentially | backfire on them, though. Engagement through addiction sadly | seems to be a bottomless goldmine, but engagement through | _deception_ can leave people dissatisfied and ripe for | poaching by a competitor. If hiding downvotes does cause | people to watch more bad and misleadingly-titled content, | that could be profitable in the short term but dangerous in | the medium-long term. | lbarrow wrote: | The content creators are also users. The announcement | emphasizes that they're doing this to help improve the content | creator experience. | undefined1 wrote: | looks like an appeal to safetyism; | | "Viewer feedback is an important part of YouTube, but we've | heard from creators that the current experience can | negatively impact their wellbeing. We also know that public | dislike counts sometimes motivate targeted campaigns of | dislikes on some videos." | | https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1376984850809380866 | gbolcer wrote: | This is just a side effect of national politics. Federal courts | rules that the public has a right to information. | | https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/a07ecc2a26 | | Despite that, Youtube is trying to counter bad engagement. | Several of Biden's content team's postings of youtube content | have gotten tens of thousand of likes, but millions of dislikes | resulting in a content "ratio". Downvoters have not been able to | be discredited as bots or automated activity. | | This isn't a general policy. It's a very specific damage control | and political advocacy cloaked in a generic policy. | nigrioid wrote: | It's because of what happens when the White House forgets to | disable comments and dislikes. | | https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/359823/former... | cbozeman wrote: | It's because of Ghostbusters (2016). It just took this long for | everyone else to catch up and realize that, "it can happen to | you". | | We were all supposed to love that movie because it has four | women in it! Turns out a shit movie is a shit movie no matter | how many SNL alums you throw at it. | happytoexplain wrote: | >We were all supposed to love that movie because it has four | women in it | | I see this sarcastic quipping a couple orders of magnitude | more often than I see the attitude it is skewering in regards | to that movie (not that that attitude didn't exist). I think | part of that is the normal overreaction to anything "SJW", | but I think the bigger contribution might be because, after | the incredible degree of hatred the black actress got, the | reasonable backlash to that enhanced the perceived magnitude | of the different-but-adjacent attitude you're criticizing. | EricE wrote: | I don't care if it was headlined by four white dudes - the | "dialog" was crap, the plot was a lazy rehash of the | original with zero lack of comedic timing or skill. | | Neither gender or race has anything to do with it being a | lazy, uninspired and un-funny movie - but people are sure | as hell desperate to use that as a shield from criticism :p | cbozeman wrote: | > the incredible degree of hatred the black actress got | | I really don't recall Leslie Jones receiving as much | backlash as certain outlets purported. Part of that is | because that, for these outlets (common offenders including | _Slate_ and its ilk), _any_ amount of backlash or derision, | or frankly, anything less than glowing praise is "racism". | And now that the word "racism" is starting to lose power, | they've moved on to "white supremacy", but that's another | topic... | | I think you could be on to something, but the bulk of the | backlash was because they butchered an absolute classic | comedy that millions of people grew up watching (I myself | have probably seen it over 50 times, my Mom said I watched | it over and over as a kid). | retsibsi wrote: | It's probably hard for any of us to know the actual | ratios, because only a filtered version of what's out | there penetrates our bubbles. | | I think with hot-button topics like this there's usually | a race-to-the-bottom spiral of reaction and counter- | reaction, with each side being fed the dumbest or most | offensive arguments from the other side and reacting to | them; then the other side sees a (likewise filtered for | stupidity or outrageousness) selection of the responses | and reacts to _them_ , and so on. | | Everyone is constantly escalating in response to the | extreme fringe on the other side, while seeing a more | representative sample of views from their own side -- | which they are probably biased toward interpreting | charitably, as well as no-true-Scotsmanning away the | worst examples. So we're all constantly baffled by why | the weirdos on the other side are overreacting so hard. | argvargc wrote: | There's a site tracking these, some of the stats on older | videos with high views are crazy (down the page): | | https://81m.org | nigrioid wrote: | Thanks for that! I'm glad to see a few people here who can | tell something's going on. | thirtythree wrote: | woah - that is very telling | ErikVandeWater wrote: | It's interesting to compare this to the Trump Whitehouse | Archive: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCITMedGC5PA- | zMrLTH5-kg | | Almost the exact inverse like/dislike ratio. | | Biden received more votes than any other presidential | candidate in history, _AND_ they should skew much younger | than Trump voters. So why is it that the Biden White House | channel struggles so much with likes vs dislikes? | mrgill wrote: | YouTube transferred all the Trump's WH subs to Biden's WH - | while Trump's WH had started with zero. | | Very stupid idea and apparently requested by the Biden | admin. Now you have millions of Trump subs just disliking | every video. | colaclanth wrote: | Probably because Biden supporters are less 'online' and | there aren't that many dedicated supporters of his (as in | there are more people who simply think biden is better than | the alternative than actually liking him). Contrasted to a | personality like Trump who amassed an online dedicated cult | following, in which they would literally try to decipher | every word he said for hidden messages from the God emperor | himself. | | In the same way that Twitter seems to be full of anti- | capitalist anarchist communists, demographics of the real | world turn out to be a lot different than social media | makes it seem. | drukenemo wrote: | This is the correct answer to me. How coincidental, just as | White House videos mostly receive dislikes. | Schattenbaer wrote: | Seems to be a visibility-only change to a small cohort of users. | | Tangentially, I've often wanted a third button, call it | "disinterested". | | This would just tell YouTube not to recommend more of the same | for me, without adjusting the ratio of votes up or down. | | There are many videos I don't actively dislike (I might not have | any strong feelings) I just don't want YouTube to recommend more | cats with laugh tracks after I click a some link in our #random | Slack channel. | SpicyLemonZest wrote: | It's weird, because they actually _have_ a "Not interested" | option in the dropdown menu when you're browsing, but there's | no way to click it for a video you're actually watching. | mcpherrinm wrote: | Youtube does have a somewhat-hidden "Not Interested" option - | on the homepage, when looking at recommendations, under the | three-dots kebab menu. It also has a "Don't recommend channel" | option there too, which I aggressively use to remove content I | don't want, like the compilation clip content farms. | Epskampie wrote: | It's under the three dots icons at your overview page. | [deleted] | kostarelo wrote: | They kinda already did though. You don't see likes/dislikes when | you search for a video so you only use it's popularity in order | to decide to click on it. | swagatkonchada wrote: | well, time for someone to build a third party dislike count and | release browser extensions | jzymbaluk wrote: | At least on comments, I'm not sure the dislike button actually | did anything previously. The count didn't move when the dislike | button was pressed. | twic wrote: | I have a much sillier reason for disliking this change, which is | that there is a charming part of YouTube culture where people | attempt to explain a small number of downvotes on an otherwise | popular video in a witty way. | | For example, on a recent piece of Imperial propaganda [1] with | 100K upvotes and 935 downvotes, we find the comment: | | > 930 heretics and counting... | | This one isn't laugh-out-loud funny, maybe raises a grin. Others | are better. But it's a tiny artform which will be lost from the | world. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWnQedD4BlI | webinvest wrote: | I remember a YouTube video of a local news reporter about to | interview a teacher for making a eyes-closed backwards | basketball shot from half court. The news reporter tries this | and with amazing luck, makes the half court blindfolded | backwards shot. | | In the top comment of the video jokingly said, "the 2 dislikes | are from the teacher and her husband". | EricE wrote: | Ah, if we only were allowed to - gasp - have fun on the | internet. | joshuak wrote: | It seems to me the platforms that have the most trouble | maintaining a grasp on reality are the ones that don't allow down | votes. Down votes are the cognitive immune system at work. Not | that down votes are necessarily correct, but rather they provide | increased resistance to propagation. Also you can hardly fix a | problem by blinding yourself to it. | bioinformatics wrote: | I guess Amy Schumer feels vindicated now. | SimeVidas wrote: | The title is incorrect. This is not about removing dislikes but | about now showing the dislike count. | tubbyjr wrote: | Use better alternative platforms such as Odysee | | Or if your fave content is only on Youtube, an alternative front- | end such as Invidious | l0b0 wrote: | Targeted dislike campaigns are clearly a thing. I'm glad they are | doing this. | Grimm1 wrote: | That title doesn't seem to be correct, they're just not showing | the exact number to anyone but the creator. | mrgill wrote: | YT should work on preventing targeted dislikes rather than taking | away the likes counter - which is so, so useful. | SXX wrote: | Okay it's seems like this is the time to create chanel of videos | full of bad advice in them. Until Google start to determine | whatever advice sounds bad to them so they can ban everyone based | off this metric too. | bitL wrote: | Next, IMDB only allows ratings between 8-10. | 0xy wrote: | Rotten Tomatoes is already highly manipulated and | editorialized. For example, the interpretation of whether a | review was "fresh" or "rotten" is completely subjective and | made by editors. | | You can see the agenda pushing and manipulation on such films | as Ghostbusters (2016). | banana_giraffe wrote: | I don't think they document it, beyond being a "weighted | average", but as I understand things, they already do give one | stars a very low weight, in addition to a weight of zero in | some cases. | sthnblllII wrote: | I think this is the appropriate analogy. Is a Hollywood movie | studio being "harassed" if people give a movie negative | reviews? No. Neither are youtube videos that get downvoted. And | yet here we are. You will consume what the people who write the | algorithm want you to, you will like it and you if you dont no | one will know. | greatgib wrote: | This is the aseptic brand new world that is pushed by too | powerful companies | | No more critic, no more negativity, just kool aid and fake | positivity as this is good for business when every one pretend to | live in a fairy world... | haunter wrote: | 'member when reddit removed the visible downvote count back in | 2014, that was really one of the end of something there | https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/28hjga/reddi... | | Just a random screenshot cause haven't found anything else in | Google https://i.imgur.com/3y8W2mk.png | | You could see if a comment was highly engaging despite at the | bottom, say 200/210 (upvotes/downvotes). Nowdays you only see the | + or - number and that's all, only pushing that "meta" narrative | that most people want to see. | stefan_ wrote: | Ironically YouTube feels a lot like Reddit to me - nothing | really changed there the past 5 years, no matter what happened | on the business side. | | Some of it is really weird. Like YouTube trying to get into | streaming, but never actually implementing anything for it - no | clips, no emotes really, but the weird "create a channel from | your personal GMail account" thing is still there. It's like | the people there were told nothing but a keyword. | tester756 wrote: | but youtube isn't some vc cash cow that has to change every 2 | weeks in order to get more moni from vcs | | i'm very fine with youtube *just working* | jfrunyon wrote: | It's supposedly about "creator well-being", which I basically | read as creators get downvote brigaded and get upset. Which is | simultaneously silly, and also will still happen because they're | still going to show the dislike count to the creator. ??? | [deleted] | tpmx wrote: | Too many embarassing cases of large numbers of downvotes on | Youtube-produced videos? | | (Edit: Boom, apparently this post was just flagged to page 2.) | stolenmerch wrote: | I'd love if they just remove Likes as well, honestly. I've been | using the 'Hide Likes' Chrome Extension for over a year now. I | have to say, not seeing Likes or Dislikes on YouTube and other | social media is a huge quality of life increase. There is a | perceptible difference in reaction when you don't know how | popular or unpopular something on the internet is. | davesque wrote: | Honestly, it seems like there's no easy win here. I think people | for and against this both have good arguments. For example, | getting rid of dislikes could mitigate the effects of synthetic | brigading campaigns. On the other hand, keeping them could in | certain cases give a better view of the organic reaction to a | video. I don't spend every day trying to solve these problems so | I don't have a strong opinion. | liaukovv wrote: | Synthetic brigading is what exactly? Bands of synthetics | downvoting videos to bring about downfall of humanity? | | Or do people's opinions count less if they are organized? | davesque wrote: | Not sure if that was hyperbole, but since you ask, yeah I | think it could actually bring about the downfall of humanity. | For example, what if climate science videos were being | significantly brigaded by bots controlled by oil companies? | Might not be that far-fetched. If we fail to communicate | effectively about issues like that, we could very well see | the downfall of humanity. Even "organic" brigading by the | anti-vaxx crowd on related videos seems like an existential | threat. | lfti wrote: | Bad news for the citizens of the Neutral Planet: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qump1X6OrEc | CountDrewku wrote: | Ayayya. Loooong past time to break Google up. They're a | disgusting propaganda machine bent on manipulating everyone into | their weird ideologies. Amazon and the rest of these social media | platforms that are working in coercion need the same treatment. | They might as well all be owned by the same umbrella corporation | at this point. | rPlayer6554 wrote: | Wouldn't a more appropriate HN title be "remove public dislike | count"? | mikece wrote: | If someone (companies included) is so sensitive to being down- | voted perhaps the internet isn't for them. In the case of one | campaign of which I'm aware, Lucasfilm and Disney has been | hammered by Star Wars fans, down-voting their videos because they | have no other way to send a message to Disney that the personnel | actions of Kathleen Kennedy have thrown the plans for the | Mandalorian -- and it's connected shows -- into delays and | uncertainty. I'm pretty sure Disney (and their shareholders) are | more upset by the fact that #CancelDisneyPlus is _still_ trending | on Twitter, something that actually costs them share value. That | YouTube would do this further shows that their platform is for | big companies and brand-safe content free from negative | perceptions and not "You" like their name implies. | DavidVoid wrote: | I'd be more for adding some kind of requirement for | liking/disliking a video. I think that would be a decent way to | get rid of shitty mass-dislikes from people who didn't even watch | the video. | [deleted] | Ekaros wrote: | I give 2 years before comments are entirely gone... | | It seems that all types of user-interaction is getting | prohibited... | sokoloff wrote: | It doesn't look like they're _removing_ dislikes at all, but | rather _hiding the count of_ dislikes from _viewers_ of the video | (in a test). | BitwiseFool wrote: | While technically true, showing the Like/Dislike count provided | valuable information for viewers. Determining whether or not a | video is worth my time will become a lot more difficult. | sokoloff wrote: | I'd argue that HN got _better_ after they hid the karma (net | of 1 + up - down) on a per-comment basis (even though I was | initially opposed to the change at the time). | | They can still use like/dislike metrics to decide which | videos to offer you and in what sort order, so there's still | some signal available. | sillysaurusx wrote: | That's the opposite change. HN hid likes, while keeping the | dislikes visible. | gundmc wrote: | HN still fades text if a comment is below a certain | threshold. | Krasnol wrote: | Let's not fool ourselves here. The disklike-horde storming | critical but good quality videos because they don't like the | message was just as normal as overhyped videos with crap | quality. Those systems are broken and this doesn't change | much. It just hides which horde likes the vid at the moment. | ALittleLight wrote: | It would be interesting to know if there is an effect where | users are more likely to dislike a video with a bad ratio. If | the public perception of a like ratio influenced the viewer's | opinion. | rosmax_1337 wrote: | This does not seem to me like a move to "improve the user | experience", but rather to hide the public opinion about certain | topics, such as politics or consumer media. Others name examples | here in this thread, such as Ghostbusters (2016) and their | trailers and recent Biden administration videos on the White | house channel. | | I am curious __in a genuine way__ if someone who might consider | themselves "woke left" (at the lack of a better word) here on HN | who sees this as a positive development? (I.e., someone who views | both aforementioned examples very positively) | | Or actually, anyone regardless of political leaning for that | matter? | | Because personally I find it hard to construct even a simple | argument for the viewpoint that hiding this information in any | improves the website and/or society at large, with youtube being | an important piece of infrastructure for the entire world right | now. This instead would just seem like google continuing down | their path of abandoning their "don't be evil" slogan. | tyingq wrote: | It is interesting how YouTube seems to maintain the mainstream | video moat. The only competitors that make any inroads are in | sub-niches, like Twitch. | ravenstine wrote: | How else is the mainstream supposed to spin reality? | Entertainment giants used to more easily create the illusion of | consensus, but web platforms like YouTube completely mess with | their power by showing downvotes. | Covzire wrote: | Smells political alright. | | The Biden admin disabled comments on all official The White | House channel videos pretty quickly into their administration. | | Most videos have a tremendously high dislike to like ratio, the | most recent is 3.4K dislikes to 205 likes. I don't know who | they expect to consume their Youtube content but it apparently | isn't the establishment's voter base. | | This is another brick in the wall that is Youtube that just | fell out if you ask me. Content creators of all stripes are | absolutely desperate for an alternative platform. | panny wrote: | To me this sounds like, | | Right: Cancel culture is bad! | | Youtube: You're right, so we are removing downvotes! | | Right: NOOOOO!!! I want to downvote Biden videos and cancel | him! | | It is a little silly. YouTube was removing the downvotes | manually as "spam" anyway. Removing the button is just easier | for them. The view count is much more telling. It seems like | they'd have to pay out more ad money to artificially pump | those numbers, so they don't do that. | | >Content creators of all stripes are absolutely desperate for | an alternative platform. | | I'm working on something like this. If you have features you | think are must have, please list them. | gnarbarian wrote: | YouTube was a free speech platform only as long as it took to | establish dominance. Now it's just another corporate | megaphone with an inconvenient independent creator problem | they are slowly solving by making it an intolerable place to | have dissenting opinions. | | Can't question the election, can't question coronavirus. Big | Google decides what is acceptable and keeps the rules and | process vague, inscrutable, and opaque so they can | selectively enforce them. | Hammershaft wrote: | You think Youtube is removing dislikes because of white house | vids that average out less than ~25000 views each? | bko wrote: | Why wouldn't you entertain this possibility? Both political | parties have been very vocal about regulating or breaking | up big tech. I think it's embarrassing to White House. Do | you believe that Google would be above doing this for | political reasons? Or do you Democrats would be above | wanting to suppress this small dissent? | michaelt wrote: | White house video: 3.4K dislikes | | YouTube Rewind 2018: 19 Million dislikes | | I don't see any reason you'd attribute removing dislikes | to the former rather than the latter. | edmundsauto wrote: | I think, in order to spend engineer time on something | this tiny, there would need to be a really strong | strategic justification. Big tech generally doesn't want | their product teams doing something that only affects a | few of their users. | MattGaiser wrote: | A lot of people think their particular political angle is | of great importance to everyone else. | EricE wrote: | And have thin skin and zero tolerance for dissenting | opinions. Hence the blanket removal of the disagree :p | Covzire wrote: | It's one of the few ways that the online public square can | still show visible discontent of what their government is | doing in a way that is easily visible to all others. | ciex wrote: | They are removing dislikes because dislikes bring | negativity to the YouTube space. Imagine what getting | dislikes feels like when you have put your heart into a | video. People expressing their disapproval without a | qualifying comment is not constructive. | jfrunyon wrote: | Dislikes are not meant to be constructive. They're meant | to warn others that a video may not be worth watching. | | I'm not sure why you're expecting your viewers to be your | reviewers. | ttt0 wrote: | You're trolling, right? Just want to make sure, because | you never know nowadays. | EricE wrote: | Not just the white house. There's wholesale rejection that | is embarrassing and counter to the messaging being pushed | my the media and cultural elites. | | Disney with the Gina Corano firing has been a huge source | of continued embarrassment. Widespread rejection of woke | takeovers of popular culture in general are problematic so | no, I'm not surprised downvotes are getting remove | universally. Much easier to hide reality when you pretend | it doesn't exist. | | Social media is a propaganda machine at this point. They | don't give a crap about free expression. Too many plebs | expressing their displeasure with propaganda can't be | tolerated so here we go. | undefined1 wrote: | what makes it worse is how many plebs are not only going | along with it, but actively enforcing it for the ruling | elites. as though they are the Red Guard. | CountDrewku wrote: | Do you have a better explanation? I wouldn't say that's the | entirety of their reasons but part of a bigger picture | ideology they want on their platform. | | Obviously, views aren't enough. There are multiple channels | that get demonetized/de-platformed that have a lot of | viewership but they don't fit in with the YouTube/Google | agenda. | riffic wrote: | > Content creators of all stripes are absolutely desperate | for an alternative platform | | Peertube exists | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube | crocodiletears wrote: | This was my first thought as well. There have been several | occasions (News content and Youtube Rewinds comes to mind) | where youtube actively suppresses or promotes content in-line | with it or its advertiser's interests, and hides anything with | a countervailing sentiments. The like ratio in conjunction with | the view count has always been a good signalling mechanism for | the purposes of identifying these instances. | kowlo wrote: | Let's hope it's an early April 1st joke... | SergeAx wrote: | Dislike button is a viable instrument of social pressure. About a | year ago popular Russian rapper appeared in a government-funded | propaganda-like video. After 1MM dislikes he addressed the | public, said he was unaware of the real purpose of video and | apologized. The video was eventually taken down. | BitwiseFool wrote: | This seems deceptive more than anything else. If a content | creator doesn't want their videos to be rated they can disable | like/dislike ratings entirely. But to remove public dislikes | across the entire site takes away a valuable indicator of video | quality. Like/Dislike ratio can also express approval and | disapproval for the subject itself, which is also valuable. | Syonyk wrote: | > But to remove public dislikes across the entire site takes | away a valuable indicator of video quality. | | Indeed. Which means you'd have to watch the ads (oh, right, | there's also a video involved) to determine that the content | was garbage. | | If you can tell without watching a video that it's trash, you | might not watch it - which is opposed to YouTube's goal of | increasing total video hours watched. Or, at least, their short | term goal of making sure people watch stuff (I suspect the long | term effects of making people watch more low grade nonsense | won't show up in this quarter's growth numbers, which means | it's Someone Else's Problem - get promoted and go do something | else, it's the Google Way). | | Despite all the claims from Google and YouTube about how | they're trying to promote certain content and reduce exposure | to others, it's a reasonable bet that their algorithms still | don't understand much of anything about a video beyond "Oh, | hey, people who watch this video watch more related videos | later, so the more people I show it to, the more those people | will watch, which increases hours watched!" | | So, presumably, "dislikes" interfered with people watching more | video. Remove the dislikes, problem solved. At least for their | definition of "problem" and "solved." | EricE wrote: | lol - YouTube and most social media is no longer for us | plebs. It's all about pushing propaganda, and unfortunately | plebs mass rejecting politically motivated BS is too | problematic. | | Instead of trying to engage/change minds it's just easier to | pretend "problems" like people having the temerity to call BS | don't exist. Double plus good. | Syonyk wrote: | Even "pushing propaganda" is a bit higher minded than | social media seems to be. | | It's all about the money. ALL about the money. How do | social companies make money? They sell ads. | | How do you make more money selling ads? Either you show | more ads (increase ad density, or increase eyeball-time-on- | platform), or you make more money per ad (I used to see | plenty of scam sites - new Kobota tractor for $1500, free | shipping, domain registered last week - and far as I can | tell, Facebook only cared that their credit card number was | good). | | More eyeball-time-on-platform requires "engaging" users | more - weaponizing psychology, notifications, and A/B | testing against them. | | Facebook's guiding principles are simple: "What's Good For | Zuck is Good For Zuck." The rest are no different. | EricE wrote: | Don't believe message is more important than ads? Even | though everyone is locked down sheltering in place due to | COVID pro sports and Hollywood award show ratings are | abysmal. If they were all about chasing the almighty | dollar there would have been messaging changes well | before now. | | BTW - there is no better driver of traffic (engagement) | to something than a good like/dislike war. This has zero | to do with money or they wouldn't be touching it. | SuboptimalEng wrote: | Seeing 1k likes "hits different" from seeing 1k likes and 2k | dislikes. | DoreenMichele wrote: | Downvotes have been weirdly wonky and aggressive all over the | internet for, say, a year or so. | | Maybe we could work harder on the root causes and worry less | about people "kicking the dog" all over the internet because life | simply isn't working across the entire planet for various | reasons. | | /Random thought from a random internet stranger | battles wrote: | April Fools? | auroranil wrote: | That's what I was thinking. It is April 1st in certain parts of | the world. | amelius wrote: | I dislike this joke. | goatcode wrote: | I wonder how long it will take until the anti-?ism apologetics | come out to justify this to headline-readers. | swiley wrote: | It's quickly getting to the point where being exposed to youtube | at all just opens you up to a ton of intentional manipulation | from an organization who's entire product is manipulating people | for pay. | | It's probably best to completely avoid all of it. | cbozeman wrote: | There's entirely too much good stuff on YouTube to ignore. I | learn so much there, all for free. | Syonyk wrote: | But what are the opportunity costs of learning stuff on | YouTube, especially if you're watching hours of content? | | There is good stuff in there - don't get me wrong. It's just | that the good stuff you want to find is often quite hidden, | and I've on occasion spent more time trying to find some | video that actually shows a tricky part of some bit of | equipment maintenance than it would take to just do things | the slow way (think "If you know the exact sequence of steps, | you can slip the alternator out this hole between the engine | and suspension - or you can just unbolt the exhaust and lower | the alternator out that way" sort of tasks - if it takes | longer to find a video with the steps clearly displayed than | to just drop the exhaust, you've taken longer). | | I've also found that YouTube leads to a very poor, surface | understanding of most issues - and this isn't the fault of | YouTube specifically, it's just a limit of video. If I want | to learn about a new topic, I'll typically try to find three | or so books on it and read those. A single book can have | biases and misunderstandings, but by the time you've read a | few, it's usually clear enough what the consensus is. Does it | take more time than an hour or two video? Certainly. But I | also get a far, far better understanding of the material | (which, if it's an area I care to learn about, is probably | useful) than I would through videos. Plus, I use an awful lot | less data in the process. | | I'm perfectly happy to be called a curmudgeon or such with | regards to my preferences for text and images over video, and | there may be part of it that's true - but I've weighed video | versus the alternatives, and outside entertainment (which | there's certainly some value in), I find video coming up | wanting. | | Also, books don't keep (buy this!) interrupting the content | (buy that!) to feed me ads for (vote for this person because | their opponent eats babies!) whatever happens to (watch this | movie!) be paying the best rates (check out this new online | bank and stock trading app!) at the moment. | cbozeman wrote: | I consider YouTube a tool. It gives me, as you pointed out, | surface level knowledge. Once I'm armed with that, I can go | dig deeper and find the books or resources I need to gain | expert-level knowledge. | II2II wrote: | > I'm perfectly happy to be called a curmudgeon or such | with regards to my preferences for text and images over | video, and there may be part of it that's true - but I've | weighed video versus the alternatives, and outside | entertainment (which there's certainly some value in), I | find video coming up wanting. | | I agree with your preference for books, but I am going to | add a caveat: the quality of books varies considerably, | with a good video being better than a mediocre book. | | That was not much of a problem when I lived in a big city. | It was easy to walk into a bookstore or library to pick out | something of value. Living in a small city limits the | options. Buying online means buying sight unseen. In the | worse case, ratings can be misleading. In the best case, | recommendations are likely coming from someone with | different needs. YouTube avoids the problem since there is | no financial risk involved in making a choice, and decent | quality content isn't too hard to find. | | (To give you an idea of what I mean: I live in a city of | half a million people. The public library system's most | advanced text on electronics is an old edition of the ARRL | Handbook. The rest are projects books directed towards | amateurs. Book sellers aren't much better since few want to | stock technical titles. University libraries offer much | better books, yet they are nearly impossible to borrow | during the academic session.) | sokoloff wrote: | I feel like I often have time saved on almost exactly the | situation you described. Changing the alternator on our | Honda CR-V, there's a method to remove the fan and fan | support and pull the alternator out the front of the car | and top instead of doing a lot more disassembly on the | front of the engine (side of the car) and draining the | coolant. I wouldn't have thought to do it that way if I | hadn't been in the habit of watching 2 or 3 videos of new- | to-me car repairs. | | I find myself watching zero mass-market television and a | lot more YouTube (tech, electronics, machining, mostly) and | think it a lot better value for entertainment time spent | than TV ever was. (Sure, it's not as dense as reading a | technical book, but after a day of work, I'm more up for | the casual experience.) | JasonFruit wrote: | I could not repair half the things I have learned to repair | without Youtube. 100% worth having to look out for manipulative | antifeatures, in my book. | sthnblllII wrote: | I dont think thats true. If people stopped using youtube | people would upload to other sites. Google hasnt taught you | how to repair anything. | toast0 wrote: | I'm happy for the content in any form, but a bunch of things | woulr be easier with a wall of text and a couple pictures I | could scroll through. | | Don't forget to like and subscribe and support me on patreon. | flukus wrote: | This is certainly true when I want to sit down and repair | something. There are other times when I just want to see | what's involved and how complicated something will be | first, maybe have dinner at the same time. This sort of | higher level overview is where I find youtube fits in well, | same for programming related videos. | | I wish there were more hybrid approaches, video with the | accompanying wall of text. | Syonyk wrote: | What sort of stuff, and what alternatives have you tried? | | If it's a vehicle, the Chilton's or Haynes (I'm sure there's | a difference but I sure couldn't tell) manuals will cover | just about anything you'd want to do. | | If it's a piece of consumer electronics, iFixit usually has | good teardown and repair guides (in the "annotated images and | text" style) that cover a lot, though for some brands you can | actually find factory repair manuals. | | Home, property, etc, there exist plenty of books out there, | and often enough, plenty of slightly bored retired people who | have been doing whatever the task is forever, and who are | happy to help someone learn the ropes. | thelean12 wrote: | So I buy the Haynes book for my car, wait for it to be | shipped and delivered, then finally figure out how to do | what I need to do. Then I put it away for 1-5 years until I | need it again, and hope I don't forget where I put it. | | Or you want me to build a friendship with a retired fridge | repairman? I don't understand that one. | | With youtube I get to watch a pro do it right in front of | me for free instantly. There's nothing like it. | | ifixit is good, though, I'll agree to that. | tryonenow wrote: | >the Chilton's or Haynes (I'm sure there's a difference but | I sure couldn't tell) manuals will cover just about | anything you'd want to do. | | Chilton and Haynes both generally consist of vague | instructions like "unscrew bolts and remove part x". | They're good for identifying which components need to be | removed for access, but they often offer very little in | terms of where bolts are (sometimes there are pictures), or | how to deal with problem areas (e.g. sometimes you need to | wiggle or turn things a certain way). | | Their limited instructions don't compare to watching | someone actually do it and walk you through problem points | simultaneously. | ryantgtg wrote: | I replaced a 12V battery on my car this morning, thanks to | a youtube vid. I didn't try any alternative sources, | because the 2 minute video was perfect! And I didn't get | sucked into any other vids or see any ads or anything. | | My recent experience with iFixit was not great. I replaced | a battery on a 2012 MacBook Pro Retina, and the tutorial | included about 40 extraneous steps (that only mattered if | you were using a certain, optional, glue removal goo). I | saw speculation that they intentionally made it seem more | difficult so people would be more inclined to bring the | laptop into a shop. It wasn't until I checked youtube, and | saw a very similar procedure, that I realized the steps | were unnecessary - via the comments! A few people noted | that you could skip all the steps prior to 11 minutes in. | And they were right. | CountDrewku wrote: | They'll be charging you to view those repair vids within the | next decade. I guaranteeeee it. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | Newpipe -> disable comments, disable recommendations. I only | see what I search for and I don't have to see the opinions of | morons in the comments. | crocodiletears wrote: | I stopped using youtube regularly a while back. It's still good | for how-to videos, and niche searches. Useless for current | events. | fasteo wrote: | Related - and maybe off-topic. | | I have never participated in any change.org campaign for a | similar reason: You cannot sign to oppose, so you end up with an | extremely distorted view of a given matter. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-31 23:00 UTC)