YouTube makes dislike counts private

YouTube has just announced to keep the dislike counts private on videos across its platform. YouTube will be hiding the dislike counts on all videos starting today.

According to the company, the change is to protect smaller creators from being targeted by dislike attacks or harassment. YouTube also wants to promote respectful interactions between viewers and creators. The dislike button will still be available but only the creator of the video will see the number instead of all users.

Moreover, YouTube heard from smaller creators and those just getting started say that they are sometimes directly targeted by this kind of behavior. A YouTube experiment confirmed that these incidents occur at a higher proportion on smaller channels.

Viewers can still dislike videos to tune their recommendations and privately share feedback with creators. YouTube has said that some users might not agree with the decision but believes that this is the right thing to do for the platform.

Source: YouTube