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Were dislikes on YouTube just a tool to be weaponised or were they actually useful?

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/how-to-get-youtube-dislikes-back-see-how-many-dislikes-on-videos-1712698/

YouTube removed the dislike button back in 2021 in an effort to curb dislike attacking behaviour, but the controversial move left creators and users without a meaningful piece of information - how good or helpful was the content.

I totally appreciate that negative reactions can be weaponised, but they do have the ability to help people make informed decisions.

Do you think a negative reaction feature could be used in a helpful way, and if so, what would this look like?

Created at 2:53pm, 24th November, 2023. Page last updated at 2:42pm, 16th May, 2024.

This post has been edited by the author for the following reason: Correction

Lanah Tyra 11/25/2023, 10:33:46 AM

Someone told me that usually people who are happy are quiet and people who just want to express their anger / dislike will be very loud. Fewer people will take the time to write something positive, so it's negative thoughts tend to be more visible. Not sure how true that is, might depend on the situation. On my Youtube videos I got a few dislikes, but the people who actually take the time to comment are 99% positive. Only got one negative comment from someone and it was simply disrespectful, not constructive feedback at all.

With videos on Youtube I think the issue with the dislike is that you don't know if it's actually your work which got the dislike or simply people disliked it because of the topic. For example you might have made an awesome game video and your skills are spot on but someone doesn't like the game you covered so you get a dislike.

Sadly there might not be a good way to get constructive feedback. A dislike button doesn't tell you much, if you tie it to a 'must make a comment' feature, that won't stop people to just simply write 'this is awful' and will still not give you the why? Maybe the only way is to teach people, and build a community where constructive feedback is encouraged and valued. That needs community leaders and moderators who would teach by example, and I think JA is on a good road to that. I really liked the staff comments on one of the bounties explaining to those who were not chosen as winners why their work didn't quite meet the requirements for the bounty. Good job there and I think this is definitely something we should be doing (not sure how much that can be kept up as the platform grows and there will be more entries for a bounty, but still worth a try)

FirestormGamingTeam 11/26/2023, 7:06:41 PM

Dislikes are a pointless thing IMO, only because they are often used by groups to "target" content creators, what is often quite laughable about this, is hitting "dislike" or "thumbs down" does not nor has it ever counted negatively on videos, it is just counted as integration, this of course counts towards the videos overall integration and simply makes it more visible on YouTube.

But also, say a video has 100 "likes" and 100 "dislikes" this is the opinion of 200 people, not the millions of gamers because if you look logically at the situation, for instance, I find the streamer Ninja irritating as anything but he is loved by millions, so simply because I dislike his content, does not mean other's will.

I would say that dislike is simply a button to hit to express an "opinion" and is in no way helpful to others watching said content.