They want to hide how many people are agreeing with the user, so the user feels he is the minority.
The power of resisting something comes from feeling like many other people are also resisting it. Removing the dislike count means the user can't see if he is alone in his opinion or not.
It's a shit move designed to promote further self censorship and control over the minds of the users.
> You can still dislike videos to further personalize and tune your recommendations
Not long ago in history, such a statement would have been totally incomprehensible, I mean completely nonsense. Even linguistically, there's so much baked into this. For starters, that there is an algorithm which which the viewer has a relationship with, and that the viewer wishes to further refine that relationship by expressing preferences. Yet, the interpretation of those preferences (by servers) are held within a black box.
It is interesting to put things into perspective like that, but I'm not quite sold on the idea that you need to know these background details (of algorithms and black boxes) to understand that expressing your preferences (dislikes) to a business may lead them to tailor what they serve you.
It turns out YouTube didn't see much benefit in providing a way to (metaphorically) shoot content creators. Taking the bullets out seems like a positive step for the community as a whole.
Helps to know who are the people that don't buy whatever it is that Google is pushing. At the very least serve them carefully selected content to change their ways.
Maybe you are right and he didn't read the article, but I think his points still stand.
This is a ridiculous decision. When someone puts something into the public space and everyone dislikes it, that should visible to anyone. This is just going to make ridiculous conspiracy videos and other harmful material like racist propaganda seem more legit than it is viewed by the rest of the public.
Now tell me more about the gray comments here on HN. If this system wasn’t designed to promote brigading and hive mind reflex… well… unintended consequence?
Often people will post comments which are inflamatory, off-topic, advertising, etc. and 'the community' can mark them down.
The parent poster saying "I've never hit a like or dislike button in my life" is a little bit like saying "I've never thrown litter or picked up litter in my life". Both understandable, one respectable, the other a bit weird - if you like the environment you are in but leave all the litter collecting to others and don't contribute to it, what's that saying about you and your one-sided use of the environment?
If you want HN or YouTube to have stuff you like, and not be overrun by the wild west of the internet, and there are no paid editors like the newspapers of old, not adding to the collective voting is like saying "everyone else, moderate this for me into a place I like, thank you".
> "I've never hit a like or dislike button in my life"
The Prime Directive protects lesser-evolved, unprepared civilizations from the dangerous tendency of well-intentioned starship crews to introduce advanced technology, knowledge, and values.
And even then, HN's guidelines say the downvote button is for comments that don't add to the discussion. Even a comment with incorrect information can add to the discussion (though admittedly much less often than an accurate comment), so it's not really about accuracy, either.
(But I will admit that I often downvote things simply because they are inaccurate.)
Why should that be up to the viewer to deduce from likes or dislike count?
The videos that people fully watch, have a positive comment section, and receive many more likes than dislikes are the videos that should result from searches.
Or how about repair videos. There are countless diy fixes for cars, computer, cell phone repair, and countless others. I use the dislike count to see if I am wasting my time watching a bad repair video. That doesn’t mean I won’t watch it but that I am more aware I may need to skim through or fast forward to key parts like the actual removal of a part or something. Anyways I think this is a negative change.
I think this is the common problem with rating systems though. Youtube is saying that the dislike count and ratio are used to unfairly pile on and reduce the real signal of the video. Instead some videos get brigaded for various reason ("I don't like this person" gets conflated with "I don't think this content is useful")
There was a user-submitted recipe app that had a similar problem, where rating system on recipes is challenging because does it imply that the recipe was incorrect, the food tasty, the writing poor? It is too hard to get that signal from a single point of "average rating"
Don't be silly. Of course YouTube can be relied on to properly censor videos themselves. They will make sure you never see anything that may make you uncomfortable. Your complete lack of faith is astonishing. (sarcasm)
> that should visible to anyone. This is just going to make ridiculous conspiracy videos and other harmful material like racist propaganda seem more legit than it is viewed by the rest of the public.
Report videos that violates Youtube's guidelines, and start your own platform if you take issue with the engagement tools they offer. Arguably, the data shows that outrage drives unhealthy engagement [1], and this appears to reduce outrage driven engagement, no different than HN flamewar detection and other mechanisms to encourage more civil discourse.
EDIT: Youtube isn't the internet, nor "commons", it's a single web property. Lots of other forums for your speech (including your own Mastadon, Discourse, or Peertube instance).
