YouTube’s removal of the dislike button is a disappointment
For an organization that seemingly takes pride in providing a platform where users are able to share their voices and produce original content, it seems odd that there has been a recent reduction in this once-heralded philosophy of the streaming platform YouTube. Late last year, the company decided to remove the dislike button from their site, a decision that seems to contradict their mission statement in which they explain that everyone deserves a voice.
A so-called “voice” can come in many forms, whether that is producing content, leaving comments, or leaving a like or dislike to make a simple statement of approval or disapproval. While removing any button that allows people to share their opinions seems itself in conflict with YouTube’s mission statement, it is the fact that only the dislikes were removed that makes the site appear less committed to allowing everyone to have a voice.
Allowing users to only see the like count does not truly reflect how the general viewership feels about a particular video and may lead to a false impression of how to interpret a video and its content. Oftentimes there may be several likes on a video, though the dislike count is many times greater than that. For example, one of the most disliked videos of all time, posted by YouTube itself (YouTube Rewind 2018), currently has several million likes. While this may give the impression that there is wide approval towards the content, this is not true, as the video had tens of millions of dislikes prior to the removal of the dislike button.
It can be argued that this is an insignificant feature of the site, but depending on the topic of a video, seeing the general attitude towards a certain topic may affect how a person interprets a topic as a whole. This can come in the form of political content, which never fails to invoke emotion and controversy for citizens in the United States and across the world. With no dislike button, and in the event that comments have been turned off (as, for political content, they often are), the only way a person may judge the general opinion towards an issue would be in the form of the likes.
YouTube has defended their decision by claiming that people sometimes dislike videos for reasons that have nothing to do with the video; while this may be true, the same can be said for why people like them. It seems that no matter what justification the company provides for why dislikes are no longer a part of its platform, the same can be argued for the feature of the like button.
In the past, the dislike count was a way for a viewer to gauge if a video was even worth their time. Regardless of this significance, the button has been removed with no sign of imminent return; right now, for better or worse, it seems that the only way viewers will be able to express their disapproval of content is in the form of comments.