While you will still be able to dislike videos, and creators will see this count on the backend if they choose, as a viewer you won’t know how many other people have disliked what you’re watching.
The History of YouTube Removing Dislikes
In March 2021, YouTube began a test to remove public-facing dislikes for some users. The company experimented with a small group of users and tested a few potential designs.
At the time, there was no way to opt out of the experiment.
Now, that change is rolling out across the entire platform for everyone, on all devices, as announced on the YouTube blog. Though you will still be able to like and dislike a video, only the number of likes will be public.
The number of dislikes will still be tracked, and creators can view this in their YouTube Studio dashboard if they desire.
Your dislikes will still be used to refine your video recommendations
Why Is YouTube Removing Dislikes?
The ability to publicly rate a YouTube video has long been a staple of the platform, so you might wonder why YouTube is hiding dislikes.
YouTube says it was noticing an increase in the number of creators (especially those with smaller channels) that were being targeted unfairly by dislikes—perhaps by groups who disagreed with what the creator stood for. It wasn’t being used to judge the quality of the video, but as an attack on the creator.
In YouTube’s experiment, it found that removing the public dislike count meant that a video was less likely to be targeted by these sorts of attacks.
Does YouTube Removing Dislikes Help You, the Viewer?
While this change may aid creators, the impact might be negative for viewers. It’s often helpful to see how many dislikes a video has before you start watching it because it’s a good indicator that the video might be of poor quality.
Now, without watching the video, all you can rely on are the comments, which are notoriously questionable on YouTube at the best of times.
