> Some of you mention dislikes help you decide what to watch,” said YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. “But dislikes were never shown to people on the homepage, search results, up next screen, where users were most likely to choose a video<p>Well I click the video and back out as soon as I see dislikes approachung likes in quantity.<p>Was that really so hard to come up with for said CEO?
This is the CEO that issued herself the Free Speech Award her own company sponsored (which got 99% downvoted due to the clear conflict of interest and the irony of the award). She's so far from reality it's likely she actually believes her own clear lies (small creators have been able to hide dislikes for years).
I'm curious to hear from YouTube users who (used to) consider the dislike count before watching a video. I can't recall if it ever majorly factored into my watch habits. I usually only noticed it in cases when users were likely being harassed (crazy ratios), or if a creator strayed from what their audience expected (anything less than crazy). On a post dislike platform, I'd expect that lowered view counts would serve as an indicator of low quality content, or audience dissatisfaction.
Though its talking about video games and not social networks, I think it apples. A somewhat similar thing has been happening in the gaming world, where useful/fun social features are removed for the sake of toxicity and the few bad actors.<p>Saw a tweet today that captured this really well:
“ I'm really tired of companies pretending that removing all social features in games is "addressing toxicity." My friend @sparkie237 put it well.
"I've made a car that cannot crash! It has no engine!"
"Is that really addressing the prob-"
"ARE YOU SUPPORTING CAR CRASHES!?"”
<a href="https://twitter.com/Raycevick/status/1486187003905339398?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Raycevick/status/1486187003905339398?s=2...</a><p>Perhaps a worrying trend, its endlessly frustrating when things like this happen. Toxicity is often a problem, but especially in the case of YouTube, where the dislike serves an pretty important role in the user experience, this toxic positivity practically only serves yt’s interests.
I don't see how it reduces harassment. The creator still sees it. It is not like they were removed entirely... And I think some manipulation was already possible. So I see even less point in this action.