Removing the dislike count is the worst possible thing YouTube could do. Youtube is not just people talking about their day or political content. It is practical content, like how-to videos, and entertainment. When you search how to do something the number one indicator it will be useful or helpful video is the dislikes. This is critical for sifting through all of the garbage videos that don’t work or aren’t related who are just trying to make a buck or get views. Even in entertainment dislikes offers the same feedback, and while it’s not a perfect measure, it absolutely provides a good indicator.
> But that's why you have a brain, so that you can make that decision for yourself! When you censor an opinion by downvoting something, you are making an unfair decision for future viewers of that content who would rather make that decision on their own.
Would you make the same argument in favor of getting rid of upvotes?
Also, expressing disagreement isn't censorship. The availability of the content is unchanged. YouTube doesn't eliminate content from their platform based on some number of downvotes.
Here on HN, downvoted comments become so hard to read I don't even bother. That's effectively censorship. On Reddit, they become automatically hidden and subject to removal. On YT, I'm not sure what happens, but it's possible downvoted videos get treated less favorably by the recommendation and search algorithms.
I enjoy 4chans model of posts with more replies generally attracting more attention (similar to sorting by controversial on Reddit). I also like that the dialogue graph there isn't necassarily 'tree shaped' and it's easier to reply to comments across a thread.
On HN, if you click on the timestamp -- voila -- it's perfectly readable again, no matter how greyed out.
They grey it out because they don't show the count. They used to, back in the early days, and it just promoted stupid arguments.
Greying it out is an elegant solution that plays well with local culture where some people will provide corrective upvotes if they think the comment doesn't deserve that.
I didn't know that, thanks. It does still require following the link to view it plainly, which is a slight deterrent, but that's a lot more balanced than I initially thought.
Downvoting on HN is poorly implemented. It should take an hour or so after the initial flood of votes before showing to the rest whether it is upvoted or downvoted. It is essentially encouraging 'bandwagoning' phenomenon - "Others have thought this out for me, I'll just downvote it and move on" instead of giving the comment a fair chance especially if it is disagreeing with constructivism and civility.
The most eggregious abuse on HN is flagging things that don't deserve it. Comments about inflation a few months ago were being flagged constantly or categorized as 'right-wing'. That's straight up censorship since the content disappears for most users who don't know the show-dead option in settings.
Flagging is great for spam and rude comments - I am down for that.
edit: Sorry for the rambling, I've just had too much gin, but this stuff has been bothering me lately.
Agree across the board. Given that internet dialogue hugely influences our thoughts today, I think the importance of the tools, platforms and/or form used to discuss things is an underrated consideration. Especially with 'misinformation' or truth wars taking place today. I think that's gonna be one of the biggest problems that needs to be solved but no ones talking about it.
I would love to somehow live in a world where the information delivered to me and others was true and not misleading, only trying to accurately convey the info at hand, and not cherrypicking or manipulating. Essentially life without propaganda or lies. I don't want to spend life either sorting through propaganda to find obfuscated truth or simply accepting the dominant consensus. Sadly I don't know how someone could ever solve this without deciding who the (corruptible) arbiters of truth are. I wish we lived in a world where our individual incentives aligned with what brings out the best both ourselves and others. I have been getting sad lately feeling like there will always be a monopoly on truth and violence, a monopoly on reality, and it will never have our best interest at the center of its heart.
'Science' is seen as the answer, the ultimate objective arbiter of truth but sadly it's an abused buzzword and has become an authority figure with followers that obey its consensus. The scientific process is diametrically opposed to accepting consensus and is about falsifying hypothesis. Today studies are sponsored by corporations that have already defined what they want to conclude and this is accepted in the public sphere as a source of truth, despite the infamous 'replication crisis' also being known in the public sphere. How do you trust experts that don't trust themselves, or have incentives that work against you?
I just feel like I've lost all hope until I see a reasonable solution on the horizon.
> When you censor an opinion by downvoting something, you are making an unfair decision for future viewers of that content who would rather make that decision on their own.
The value of the downvotes on HN, Reddit and YouTube is to save time when trying to find signal among the noise.
Still, I agree that some people may end up unfairly not being heard/seen.
But removing downvotes seem one step closer to surrendering to The Algortihm.
Then again, perhaps that is the general idea. And perhaps it will work out. YouTube can transparently use watch time instead of vote counts when deciding how to rank stuff. That’s what TikTok does, from what I understand. Maybe YouTube already does as wel. And in that sense, video content is a bit different from text.
So even though my initial impression of this change was negative, I think it may work out when we consider the difference between HN, Reddit on one side and video streaming services like YouTube and TikTok on the other side. (Also, I am aware that Reddit hosts videos too, but I am talking about the text and external link content here).
A counterpoint is that at least on reddit the downvote button is rarely well used. It's always a "I disagree" button, so both bad and controversial things are pushed down. It's not the case here in general I think, but I actually think this is a good argument in favor of removing dislikes. It filters some bad things but also just controversial things for one reason or another.
What definition of "censor" are you using, which allows downvotes to be framed as censorship, yet the concealment or elimination of downvotes to escape that branding?
First: So anything that can be misused or abused should be abolished? That's your argument? I think I would prefer a more nuanced view and a more nuanced response.
Second: You claim here that downvoting an opinion "censors" it. All I can say to that is, you need to look up "censor" in the dictionary.
Third: You are seriously arguing that moderation should be illegal? Please tell me that was a joke.
Yeah this doesn't make sense. I don't know if they don't understand how YouTube works, but downvoting something doesn't remove the content from view. On sites like reddit and hackernews downvoted comments become less visible but they are still there. I don't think anywhere that implements downvoting ends up "censoring" that content based on just downvotes.
Making it harder to read is tantamount to censorship. It also erodes the user experience. Why do I need to highlight or squint at something a ton of ignorant people disagreed with?
Okay but we are talking about YouTube. YouTube doesn't even do this. Nothing changes about your experience watching a video if it has a lot of dislikes.
A) you can click on the time / hours ago to link to the comment without lightening
B) text selection
C) I think HN is one of the least ignorant communities out there on the net. Occasionally downvoted comments are merely controversial or against the grain, but more often then not, they are flawed in some way. In fact their rarity makes them neat to read (high surprisal) if only to understand where they might be coming from.
Deciding which content to promote and which to bury is censorship however you do it. There's more content than human attention, if you promote one piece of content, whether you choose to do it chronologically or with updoots or Google bosses deciding what's true, you're "censoring" something else by crowding it out.
Yes, although it could be mitigated, by having different sort order options and allowing users to adjust scoring options, including to accept or disable scores put in by others. (Local scoring is something often done in NNTP. Some NNTP clients also support global scoring, although a better more simplified and general format suitable for many programs might be helpful, and must ensure that users can easily disable that feature if it is not wanted, as well as to adjust weights that apply to it.)
You seem to be yet another person who needs to get a lot more acquainted with the definition of "censorship". Words have meanings. Comparing the mere promotion of some content over other content with "censorship" is gravely ignorant, for starters, and also, it's an insult to all those who have suffered from actual censorship.
Please learn the difference and don't gaslight people about this.
Are you aware that dislikes have the same effect as likes on YouTube? Both of them increase exposure- dislikes don't decrease visibility of a video at all, much to the contrary actually.
