For years, viewers have been able to rate videos on YouTube by clicking on the “like” or “dislike” icons. However, the Google-owned video platform has only recently realized that the thumbs-down button could be used to bully individual YouTube users.
YouTube’s new Experiment
Keeping this in mind, YouTube will be testing a few different designs for the platform that don’t reveal the public dislike count. The ‘latest designs’ are still an experiment, and certain creators and audiences will be able to see them in the coming weeks.
???????? In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we’re testing a few new designs that don’t show the public dislike count. If you’re part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks (example below!). pic.twitter.com/aemrIcnrbx
— YouTube (@YouTube) March 30, 2021
The number of likes and dislikes will continue to be visible in the YouTube Studio dashboard tool for YouTube makers. Viewers who are part of the experiment will also be able to like or dislike a video in order to “share their feedback with creators”.
YouTube was famously the subject of a widespread “dislike” movement a little more than two years ago.
YouTube Rewind, the platform’s annual rundown of culture and meme trends, set the record for the most dislikes less than a week after it was released in December 2018. Critics were dissatisfied that that year’s Rewind featured mainstream celebrities such as Will Smith, Trevor Noah, and John Oliver while excluding a large number of native YouTube makers. It has 19 million “dislikes” and 2.9 million “likes” at the moment. Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, admitted that her children felt the video was “cringe.”
YouTube also revealed last week that the ‘Products in this Video’ choice will be expanded. In any YouTube video, the update will include videos for related material. When a user scrolls through the video player, the feature will appear in between the suggested videos.
The new feature will be added to the existing recommended videos section, which shows videos that are close to the ones users are already watching. It is supposed to focus on the video that viewers watch to learn more about a product before purchasing it.
Stay tuned with Stanford Arts review for latest updates.
