‘Important for Balance’: YouTubers React to Hiding of Dislikes

Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj

In a recent tweet, YouTube announced that it is testing and experimenting with a bunch of new interface designs and is planning to hide the dislike counter on videos from public view.

While the counts will be hidden from the public, they can be viewed by the content creators through their YouTube Studio dashboard. The company says the latest experiment is an attempt at fostering the well-being of content creators.

We spoke to YouTubers to gauge their response to the experiment.

Varun Mayya, Content Creator on YouTube, welcomed this initiative and said, “Sometimes you have these angry mobs who come to very specific YouTube videos and hit the dislike button because they disagree  with what the creator said. I think YouTube removing the dislike button will prevent these angry mobs unleashing on YouTubers.”

Rajesh Kumar, aka FactTechz, fastest YouTuber to cross 10 million views, believes that it is not a really great idea. “Making this the default look won’t be good for the entire YouTube ecosystem,” he said.

Comic content creator Salil Jamdar, on the other hand, offered a wry take on the dislike button. “I had a great love affair with this dislike button. The moment I would upload a video even before the entire video was watched I'd start getting dislikes.”

While some YouTubers think hiding the dislike count will be good some others think dislikes help gauge the overall feedback.

Gaming & Entertainment Content Creator on YouTube Mithilesh Patankar, popularly known as Mythpat, thinks that the dislike button voices the opinion of the audience. “The dislike counter is important for maintaining a balance on the website. Sometimes It penalises good content also but over the years, this dislike button has been there to voice the opinion of the audience.”

While popular singer Aksh Baghla thinks that the new feature “is a great way for creators to know whether their content is working”.

Creator of Binod, YouTuber Gautami Kawale, also welcomed this initiative by YouTube stating that the ‘dislike’ counter is an indicator for YouTubers to know whether the video has been liked or not. “Since we've been creating content for a long time. We know that we get this number of dislikes no matter what we do and if we get dislikes above that sometimes it's an indicator or us as well that this video has not worked out that much,” she said.

Commenting on YouTube experimenting with hiding the dislike counter, Pranav Panpalia, founder, OpraahFx, said that removing the counter is a great feature. “Bigger YouTubers can run a dislike campaign which can probably demotivate the younger YouTubers so, I feel to remove that demotivation this is again a great feature[sic.],” he said.