r/technology • u/Dilpickle2113 • 10h ago

Social Media YouTube is testing hiding the dislike button entirely and users aren’t happy

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-testing-hiding-the-dislike-button-entirely-and-users-arent-happy-3420822/
24k Upvotes

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128

u/garyvdh 10h ago

Here's my rant. People get so upset about there being no dislike button, but they can't stop themselves from posting on videos that they don't like. Comments like "AI slop" or "this is crap" mean nothing to Youtube's algorithms which just interprets it as user engagement. The bad videos are then pushed to the top because of all the angry comments. People need to actually learn to completely ignore the bad videos so that they just die out by themselves.

55

u/Well_Socialized 10h ago

The dislike button helps with that though. If I click that I feel less need to also write something about how I don't like it.

3

u/garyvdh 9h ago

Oh I agree with you totally, but apparently YouTube is taking that away. So people are going to have to restrain themselves.

1

u/EdgiiLord 9h ago

Censor your speech, ey? So much for liberalism and capitalism, you either like the slop or you have to shut up.

12

u/Telandria 9h ago

it doesn’t, actually. Youtube algorithms, like Reddit’s, only care about ‘engagement’ — and dislikes count as engagement, same as comments. And the latter is even worse on Youtube, with the algorithm searching out keywords in your comments and giving them higher weight if they spot certain terms.

Check out The Spiffing Brit on youtube sometime, he has a lot of videos on how to exploit the algorithm (especially among his live VODs) and all the weird shit that comes of it. It’s rather eye-opening at times.

9

u/k3rstman1 9h ago

Back then if I had to choose between 2 tutorials I'd click on the one with the best like-dislike ratio. I wouldnt need to engage with the bad video at all

0

u/VexingRaven 7h ago

The solution, as it ever was, is to stop using a single youtube video as your sole source of information. Watch both, look up what you're not sure about elsewhere, make your own decisions for yourself.

2

u/Well_Socialized 9h ago

Hmm dislikes resulting in a post being promoted more seems like a crazy design choice, though I guess I wouldn't put it past them.

3

u/scotchdouble 9h ago

Again, it’s about engagement. It’s like the old adage that attention is desired, whether good or bad. Engagement means people are on the platform, watching, generating ad revenue, getting others to watch it. Doesn’t matter if the content is appealing, it’s optimized for the business, not for the users.

1

u/pfannkuchen89 9h ago

It’s not crazy, it drives engagement. People still clicked on it, watched it, got served ads.

The best thing to do is not click on them and use the ‘not interested’ or ‘stop recommending this channel’ options before clicking on these slop videos. Or not interact with them at all.

1

u/Pink_Egg_Cereal 9h ago

they know that it will get engagement. hence why reddit tried to force the terrible awful "for you" home page. they cater subs that get arguments making you come back to the app

they legit dont care a bout you at all. if you are mad they want that. you come back to argue

1

u/Telandria 9h ago

I don’t disagree about it being insane, but then again, when were major corpos ever when it comes to the pursuit of profits?

1

u/Ml_lD 9h ago

Nah, he’s right. Anger is a powerful motivator.

Like, for example, if it seems like you’re surrounded by people holding opposite political opinions of you it’s because you downvote them

Your moral obligation to fight the bad guys is being monetized

Like you’ll see Redditors swear Reddit is a Leftwing site and you’ll see people aggressively refute and say it’s Rightwing— they’re both right.

They’re just downvoting their opponents and being shown more opponents to engage with.

2

u/FilthyCasual2k17 9h ago

Yeah, this is the point. The only thing disliking a video really says to the algorithm is "I am ready to engage with things I don't like" and "This video is worth something because it's contraversial". As is said above, the only "real" dislike "button" is actually ignoring the video.

2

u/Telandria 9h ago

Yep. It’s basically a form of the monetization of outrage.

0

u/Fun_Brother_9333 8h ago

You could just move on with your life like most people.

63

u/dervik 9h ago

How can you ignore it if you want to give feedback after watching it and disliking the content? There should be a mechanism for voting down fake news, slop and low effort content

9

u/VernonP007 9h ago

I want to watch soccer highlights now I don’t know which videos are legit and which are bullshit due to the lack of a dislike button

2

u/whitepawn23 4h ago

And that is the entire point. The data center folks, which Google is part of, can’t have downvotes.

0

u/VexingRaven 7h ago

If you need a dislike count to tell you if it's bullshit or not, how did the people who disliked it before you know it's bullshit? Look at how uninformed, gullible, and generally stupid everyone is. People love to talk about how often complete nonsense gets upvoted on Reddit. Why would you trust dislike counts on youtube to mean anything at all in the first place?

5

u/VernonP007 7h ago

Because like minded people want to watch football highlights not slop. If they see slop, they downvote.

-4

u/VexingRaven 6h ago

And you're relying on other people to tell you it's slop? Sounds like you're proving my point perfectly.

1

u/BriscoCounty-Sr 5h ago

Wait until you hear about “user reviews”. It’s a wild concept

1

u/LimitDNE0 6h ago

The people before watched it and disliked it. Now the rest of us can check the like-dislike ration before watching it and know. That way we don’t have to watch it, the video doesn’t get any views/engagement, and the algorithm pushes it into the abyss.

The way it is now, everyone has to watch the video to tell if it’s good. That along with any comments stating its bad are engagement and the algorithm pushes the video to kore and more people.

Sure some videos will get review bombed one way or the other but that’s still better than every video being a 50-50 on whether the algorithm is feeding it to you because its a good video that got engagement or because its a bad video that got engagement.

-1

u/VexingRaven 6h ago

I'm sorry but if you need to watch more than the first 30 seconds to tell if it's crap, you deserve this

1

u/LimitDNE0 4h ago

Per Youtube’s blog, a “view” is counted once the very first frame of the video is played, even if that’s the autoplay you get from hovering over a thumbnail. An “engaged view” is one in which the video keeps playing for “some amount of seconds after the first frame”. Again, that also counts if you are simply hovering over a thumbnail of a video.

Recommendations for videos, aka the algorithm, are based off of the engaged views. So if it takes you more than a couple seconds to not only determine a video is bad but also pause it, then Youtube has probably already counted it as an engaged view and passed it along to the algorithm. Taking 30 seconds to do so all but guarantees it counts as an engaged view.

The only way to guarantee a video isn’t used for a recommendation is to never watch it. For that you need a visible metric to go off of that doesn’t involve watching it yourself, even for 30 seconds. Anything else, like telling Youtube you’re “Not interested”, is you trying to fix the recommendations after the fact.

1

u/VexingRaven 3h ago

How long you watch absolutely has an effect on the metrics. Anyway, dislikes were never visible without clicking the video so I'm not sure how that solved this problem either.

13

u/Squish_the_android 9h ago edited 8h ago

That doesn't matter to the algorithm. The goal isn't to give you content you'll like, it's to give you content you'll watch and engage with.  It's for their benefit, not yours.

3

u/dervik 9h ago

So you think that a video with 1000 likes has the same popularity as one with 1000 likes and 1000 dislikes (same amount of views for both)? Would he interesting to know how they would be ranked

8

u/Squish_the_android 8h ago

For YouTube, they don't care about assessing video quality in the way that you're thinking of.  A quality video to them is a video that you watch and engage with.

I think that if you're watching both a heavily liked and heavily disliked video they are equally contributing to what YouTube wants out the algorithm, which is you continuing to watch content on the platform.

They only care about how serving you disliked content impacts your engagement if it leads to you leaving the platform.

3

u/neeshes 7h ago

Their definition of higher rank/popularity is a higher view count and higher engagement (likes, dislikes, comments, shared). 

1

u/Over_List_6108 6h ago edited 6h ago

Nah he's saying the one with 1000 likes and 1000 dislikes will be higher rated because it has more engagement.

Think of these following things as being checks for engagement that drives a video's rank up.

likes/dislikes, a comment, shared, subbed, time spent watching, I'm not sure if there are more, but you get the idea.

The more checks in general that happen the higher ranked a video will be. More importantly, if individual users are doing multiple checks on a video that will rate it higher than if people are just doing one check.

Say two videos have the same number of checks, the video with less viewers will actually be rated higher because engagement is higher. People are reacting multiple times to the video (liking, commenting, sharing). The algorithm guesses that video will be more popular once more people see it since so many people are reacting multiple times. It doesn't care why or what they are saying. Just that people are engaging and using the site.

Edit to add: I'm pretty sure there is both a global algorithm as well as your personal algorithm working together that both use this. Most of this is assumptions from a bunch of nerds working together since google isn't exactly giving out their secrets.

1

u/woodworker_junkie 6h ago

I'd almost bet that the one with 50:50 ratio would be more likely to appear, simply because people did bother to engage with it beyond just watching for long enough, so the view actually counts as a view. It tells YT that when they serve it to you next, you might be also more likely to engage with it and help spread it like wildfire, even if it's something controversial asf

1

u/CourtDesperate2376 8h ago

Neste suposto video com 1000 interações em cada campo , o algoritmo lê as 2000 interações e considera o video um sucesso.

2

u/couldbemage 6h ago

The word your looking for is should, there should be a mechism for voting down crap.

But Google doesn't care about what we want, they are quite happy with the ad money they get from slop videos.

2

u/woodworker_junkie 6h ago

I report them and move on, lol

1

u/bloodrider1914 8h ago

Usually I can tell pretty quickly if it's going to be a bad video

1

u/dbxp 8h ago

Why would youtube care if you dislike a video? They sell just as much ad space on an ad you don't like vs do like

1

u/Anubis17_76 7h ago

there is, its the report function

1

u/0RGASMIK 6h ago

Find any reason it violates TOS and report it. Any AI video with an AI voice is likely stealing someone’s likeness.

1

u/spagbolshevik 2h ago

YouTube has zero interest in such a mechanic now, because it's not profitable. Engagement is all that matters to them.

1

u/Eena-Rin 6m ago

If it's a short, you can tell the algorithm not to show you content like this or not to recommend the channel

1

u/TopazTriad 9h ago

Absolutely not. You can influence your own algorithm by not engaging with that stuff and telling YouTube you aren't interested in it, but a vote system would allow people to influence what others see.

Reddit has already proven how people can't be trusted to use a vote system in the way it's intended. It immediately becomes a popularity contest instead of a way to filter out bad content.

3

u/Sonamdrukpa 9h ago

What if you don't know a video is crap until you've started watching it

2

u/TopazTriad 9h ago

I would rather have to figure it out myself than have other people tell me what is acceptable and what isn't. I'm never going to support strangers being able to influence what I see as if I can trust that will all be above board.

0

u/Sonamdrukpa 8h ago

I'm sorry have you not been on the modern internet? We will all be assimilated into the algorithm shortly.

3

u/Big-Cry-7995 8h ago

Those who see and talk about the algorithm as an almighty entity surely will be, in fact many already have.

0

u/Sonamdrukpa 8h ago

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven

2

u/donoteatshrimp 9h ago

I've started muting every sub that shows me the sort of thing i don't really want on my feed but fuck it actually makes it worse and I'm getting constant posts from indian/bollywood subs on my front page more than I can mute them. I guess it doesn't know what to show me any more?

1

u/sankto 9h ago

If you are using Ublock Origin to block ads, there's a line i add to my custom filters to remove anything from a given sub :

reddit.com##shreddit-post[subreddit-prefixed-name="r/TheSubName"]

Just make sure to correctly capitalize the sub's name.

2

u/donoteatshrimp 8h ago

Oh hey, didn't know ublock could do that and I am indeed using it, thank you. Kinda hate that I have to click subs to mute them in the first place. My front page recs are getting so fucking weird lately.

1

u/dervik 9h ago

I agree with the point of telling YouTube that you are not interested, despite it being cumbersome (most will not do it) and it's not really working for me personally.

I do not agree that you should only influence what you see as I do want to vote on what others should not see if it is fake news for example. Taking reddit as a counter example while using the platform does not make sense to me, I do not see where Reddit failed about that

1

u/TopazTriad 9h ago

I use Reddit because it has genuinely useful stuff sometimes and because I'm sure as hell not using any of the alternatives. It's in spite of the vote system.

I routinely see people who post perfectly reasonable, completely non aggressive comments get banished to the shadow realm (comments are literally hidden if you're at like -10 and then your ability to engage is pretty much taken away) because their opinion is unpopular. No, I am not dog whistling MAGA shit or bigots, I'm genuinely talking about totally normal comments or basic disagreements about something trivial like video games or TV shows. People who lurk on new have a disproportionate ability to influence the tone threads take. It's highly susceptible to bots and brigading.

I think you just trust people on a fundamental level more than I do. I don't believe for a second that it would be used for just fake news and AI, people would abuse it constantly.

1

u/HansHortio 9h ago

If only there was a button that could do that...

2

u/Falling_Up_The_Movie 8h ago

The one they are about to get rid of…?

1

u/dervik 9h ago

We are discussing that exactly this button is being phased out...

1

u/Karnighvore 8h ago

I hit don't recommend channel usually. 

0

u/janetjacksontitty 9h ago

You can still hide channels. That's the best option tbh. Keeps you from inadvertently engaging with slop.

We're past the point where outrage or downvotes or any of that matters tho. Any engagement is good engagement in the eyes of the slop/fake news factories. They're using outrage as a tool, not a detriment.

1

u/dervik 9h ago

So you are hiding each channel you do not like when scrolling through YouTube shorts?

1

u/janetjacksontitty 9h ago

I don't look at shorts at all tbh. But, yeah, I hide channels all the time. Same thing on reddit. You press one button, it's not difficult. If a sub annoys the shit out of me, it gets hidden. Obviously all these companies use algorithms that push shit at you 24/7, but you can still curate what you see if you're diligent about it.

Like, I don't see political stuff on Reddit. Any new political sub that appears on my homepage gets blocked. I'm not going to partake in the bot wars, especially during election season. Does reddit still push new political subs at me? Occasionally, and then I address it and go back to my memes.

1

u/Karnighvore 8h ago

Yes, I hide each channel. Lack of a better way for sure, but it's somewhat effective.

0

u/Swords_and_Words 7h ago

Oooor there could just be a like and dislike counter, so people could judge a video at a glance

If only that could exist...

0

u/AlkaKr 4h ago

Use blocktube to block it before watching it just based on the thumbnail(gooner, ai slop, surprised face, clickbait icons, etc) or the duration(you anything from 10:00 to 10:50 is gonna be absolute garbage) while also having the option of Blocktube on that when blocking something it automatically clicks the "not interested" button as well.

-1

u/project-shasta 8h ago

News flash: YouTube/Google/Alphabet doesn't earn money with good quality content.

16

u/Dorintin 9h ago

Back in the old days we could just avoid disliked videos...

14

u/DaRealJoeBiden69 9h ago

Why are YouTube’s algorithms so fucking dogshit is a better question.

9

u/astelda 9h ago

It's working exactly as intended.
It doesn't matter at all to companies whether you like the content that you see

what matters to them is whether you keep using the platform and seeing their ads. That's the primary metric the algorithm targets, always.

1

u/Reikukaja 7h ago

Late stage capitalism sure is fun. 🙃

1

u/MatthewMarajuanahey 7h ago

Okay, but when it stops showing me new stuff I want to see, I stop watching YouTube and go to Peacock for Office reruns or something.

14

u/kamekaze1024 9h ago

That’s what the dislike button was for. You knew a video was bad and could communicate that by increasing the dislike to like ratio.

Now you have to comment because how else do other users know it’s bad beside having to watch the whole video

2

u/Kal-Elm 4h ago

Yeah the way I see it the "AI slop" comment does give the video a slight boost. But if I see that comment I close out the video, instead of watching it long enough to find out or be fooled. And if enough people are like me, then the comment's boost is outweighed.

1

u/ltree 5h ago edited 5h ago

Exactly. These days we have to go look for the top comments to see if they are saying the video is garbage. Same functionality as the dislike button but with extra steps.

5

u/Vishnej 9h ago

This is exactly the sort of reason that Youtube AI posters should be opposed to the dislike button, Youtubers should be in favor, and Youtube itself should be wildly in favor. Because watching a video that leaves a bad taste in your mouth being pushed to you by the algorithm makes you watch less Youtube overall.

Fuck the "review bombing" concern and other fringe social considerations, this is core audience engagement we're talking about tainting by eliminating this from the algorithm. Ragebait might work on a very short term, but eventually people get exhausted of it and trim the bullshit out of their lives. Prompting the algorithm to push ragebait is a way of sabotaging their success in the long term by fucking their brand.

3

u/MrouseMrouse 9h ago

You're not wrong but sometimes I have to watch part of a video before I know that I dislike it.

3

u/punished_kot 8h ago

People need to actually learn to completely ignore the bad videos so that they just die out by themselves.

What do you think is an easier solution, train the entire human race to fundamentally alter their psychology to not want to engage with negative/bad content? or add a single button that functions as a funnel/outlet for those feelings to redirect them away from comment sections and also effortless classifies sentiment about the video?

2

u/RankedFarting 9h ago

Except they dont die out. Having comments with upvotes saying "ai slop" shows that people do not want this. Comment sections are much more relevant than people realize.

2

u/dbbk 9h ago

I mean it wouldn't say it means nothing, they're well capable of determining sentiment from comment text

2

u/Spankety-wank 8h ago

the dislikes should be displayed so that people get an early warning to stay away, or that it's disinfo, or slop or whatever. then it would actually decrease engagement, which is why they hid it in the first place

1

u/MooseTurbulent8786 4h ago

I feel like redditors massively overestimate the amount of people that used and paid attention to the dislike button

1

u/Kaypeepickle 3h ago

They aren’t overestimating, they are lying. They want the dislike button back, so they invent all the noble reasons why it should be given to them and how important such a function is to weed out those videos that wish to harm you and your family!

Don’t you remember how Rebecca Black harmed you and your family!?

2

u/Square-Reasonable 8h ago

This is untrue, YouTube's algorithm can absolutely tell the difference between negative and positive comments. 

It's the whole point though, they know that controversial content with both positive and negative interactions get the most viewership & interactions. 

2

u/TajineEnjoyer 8h ago

>People need to actually learn to completely ignore the bad videos so that they just die out by themselves.

should youtube change how it recommends videos ? naah, EVERYONE ELSE should learn to just ignore them

2

u/Fancy-Trousers 7h ago

And since they've decided to count ANY amount of view time as a valid view now, you can't even pop in, pause immediately, dislike, and leave. They know exactly what they're feeding into. It's the goal, after all.

2

u/Swords_and_Words 7h ago

If only there were a way for people to judge the community response to a video that the algorithm suggest, before watching it and without having to read through (and be spoiled by) the comments 

Some kind of dislike counter next to the like counter?

If only someone had thought of this already...

2

u/boogaloo9214 7h ago

Speaking from experience, I can confidently say that the number of comments isn't as important to a video's success as you think. This kind of engagement makes very little difference to whether the algorithm decides to push the video more or not.

2

u/squidwardsaclarinet 7h ago

To be fair, those comments can be helpful, because it helps other users know that they should stop watching a video. Granted, you don’t need 100 comments like that, because then it does become a boost to engagement, but somebody should say it, and sometimes you do need a lot of comments, because some users will remove comments that call them out.

2

u/shark-off 5h ago

Don't be silly. Be realistic

2

u/ob2kenobi 5h ago

Without the dislike count, commenting is the only way to combat misinformation. I watch a lot of educational and maker videos, and there are so many bad and frankly dangerous videos out there. I would feel bad letting that stuff stand unchallenged.

1

u/Nexies 9h ago

There are just so many users on YouTube I don’t know how you think this opinion is serious. For every commenter there are probably as many or more users that don’t comment. Though you correctly identified how rage comments can push videos up, that’s definitely true, but in the context of the dislike button it’s not really a fact that most users will comment anyway, it’s an assumption

1

u/Mister_UAP 9h ago

You've just laid out the backbone of the modern internet: engagement bait. 

Most content on the internet is no longer meant to entertain or inform you. Its main focus is to get you to engage, and the easiest way to get someone to engage is to piss them off. 

I truly think that we don't appreciate how much of an impact this has had on society. 

And it's not going to stop. People aren't going to stop commenting on things that piss them off, whether or not there's a dislike button. Most of this shit is created specifically to illicit that reaction, and a lot of people don't even realize it's happening, so they will always fall for it. 

Even if every reasonable person on Earth decided to never comment on some annoying shit ever again, the children, old people, and general dumbasses of the world would be enough to prop these engagement bait farms up. 

1

u/GuyBitchie 9h ago

I don't know why the people need to change when the platform is the one pushing garbage when users express themselves the way they want.

YouTube is a service and when they decide to only push garbage it will die.

1

u/Pink_Egg_Cereal 9h ago

yup 100%. reddit as well has this problem

1

u/Agent_Snowpuff 9h ago

I don't care what happens with the video I just want youtube to stop showing me stuff like it.

1

u/meatblast_surprise 8h ago

This is by design because all they want is analytics and eyes on advertisements. It hasn't been about video quality since like 2008.

1

u/SpectacledSnake 8h ago

As far as I can tell, angry users unable to express their anger is their whole objective.

1

u/azukihusband 8h ago

I agree but how exactly can you know you'll dislike a video unless you watch it? High dislike counts atleast gave you an idea that a video wasn't particularly liked by the general audience.

1

u/Alaishana 8h ago

Me monkey.
Me screech at snake.
Me screech at lion.

Me not silent!

1

u/Ambisextrous2017 7h ago

That defeats the purpose of social media being a cortisol rage baiting, dopamine addicting, adrenaline inducing phenomenon that will lead to the fall of this so called civilization of humans.

1

u/Lost-Inevitable42 6h ago

What if I want a bad video to get more exposure so that it ensures others also see how bad it is?

1

u/__ohno_notagain__ 6h ago

Once people start going to the three dots and selecting “not interested” or “don’t recommend this channel” then YouTube will break that too. Just like what Reddit did here.

1

u/MooseTurbulent8786 4h ago

Ppl act like you can't click "not interested" on a video and it goes away

1

u/rushmc1 4h ago

What you don't understand is that the POINT of the content is to provoke an emotional response of one kind or another. Engagement is the only thing that matters (to Google).

1

u/islobojono 3h ago

Those comments help other people know to not waste their time watching it.

1

u/Dark_Sun_Arts 58m ago

Yeah, more people need to know that the button already does nothing! In fact, as you've described, it's worse than nothing because it rewards ragebait.

There's also no easy way out of this predicament because the dislike button also shouldn't be a nuke, otherwise different groups of people will routinely mass dislike what they want to be pushed down in the algo. Hell, entire countries' bots also will.

What YT needs is the return of the 5 star system but with flags so that users who typically rate 1 or 5 stars and/or are newer have their ratings adjusted towards the median.

1

u/donoteatshrimp 9h ago

Can you tell that to the people in subs like /r/aislop? You hate seeing it, I hate seeing it, but now I'm having to see it under a big old spotlight with thousands of upvotes from the amount of people not just commenting on but REPOSTING ai slop for the sole purpose of going "ew ai slop". drives me nuts

1

u/LookAlderaanPlaces 8h ago

People are stupid as fuck on average though, this isn’t going to happen.