from Hacker News

I Am Boycotting YouTube's Like Button

by AHappyCamper on 11/30/21, 5:54 PM with 26 comments

Google recently castrated the Dislike Button, and now you can press it, but it essentially does nothing. Because no-one can see any effect, no-one will really use it, and eventually, Google will remove it altogether.

Once again, Google is following in Facebook's guidebook on how to implement 1984.

By removing even this meagre ability to dissent, you take away people's ability to think about dissenting (1984).

This is morally wrong, and it should offend the senses of any true engineer.

Engineers (and other critical thinkers) make observations on the world based on the data they perceive. If the data is corrupted, skewed, or biased, then our observations are equally so.

By removing a critical piece of data - people's dislike of a video, Google has corrupted the observations of their viewers, and in doing so, has made the world less honest.

E.g. imagine you see a video on remedies for arthritis. The video has 11,000 likes. Just from that data alone, you would assume that there may be merit to the remedies suggested. But if the dislike count was displayed, you would be able to see that it had 250,000 dislikes, meaning that this remedy may have caused harm to many more viewers than it helped.

The dislike capability is necessary for making accurate observations of the world in a communal setting, and Google should replace it ASAP.

  • by raxxorrax on 12/1/21, 1:49 PM

    > Once again, Google is following in Facebook's guidebook on how to implement 1984.

    I dislike Youtubes transformation towards TV as much as anyone, but we should stay reasonable here. This just makes complaints seem infantile.

    Yes, this move is to shield large publishers, their business partners, looking for success in a new digital world instead of the "small contributors" as Youtube itself claims.

    I believe this will make Youtube worse and other platforms might take its place. People will invent other metrics like being ratio'd on Twitter. Not that their algorithm didn't already show you heavily disliked content from "reputable" news sources anyway.

    Haven't met anyone that likes this move, but they are still in a dominant market position for now. I doubt they will stay there honestly if they continue to consolidate content.

  • by armchairhacker on 11/30/21, 6:55 PM

    There should be a browser extension which overlays YouTube with likes / dislikes / comments coming from a different site (a Reddit or HN just for YouTube). So people can still see and add dislikes and also unfiltered comments.

  • by guidovranken on 11/30/21, 9:53 PM

    I understand why a lot of creators need to use Youtube (revenue, discoverability) but I suggest that anyone who doesn't strictly depend on them to upload their content to random other video websites. Video streaming is a solved problem and there's no reason Youtube should have a near-monopoly on it. The more you limit their market share, the more likely they are to listen to their "customers".

  • by mattbgates on 11/30/21, 9:46 PM

    One man's lost feature is another man's business opportunity. I thrive on building the products and services that the mainstream, particularly Google or Facebook and now YouTube see as their downfalls. Sucks they did it and I don't think anyone will ever create anything as popular as YouTube, though we have examples of TikTok and Vimeo that certainly have their market share.

    It is wrong to move the dislike button. Even I published a video for my business and got a dislike on it -- I took notice and moved on with my life. It does suck and I think you're on to something: without a dislike button, there's really no reason to use a like button. However, Facebook has never offered a dislike button, only an angry button, and we all tend to use it.

    BUT... you are right about one thing: less focus on your like or dislike which doesn't even really do anything in the first place.

  • by bdidicn on 11/30/21, 7:41 PM

    They gave "official" sources preferential treatment in the SERPs. Now you are bombarded with shitty TV news anchor videos. There are also government videos pushed to the top like from the CDC. People (or bots, who knows) dislike these videos. And they end up with a overwhelming dislikes. I don't think Google wants other people to be influenced by the majority dislikes. They want their authority news sources to be respected.

    I actually support the removal of the dislikes. Before, YouTube would just change the dislike count. You could go to a video and come back later and the dislike count would be lower. (Maybe they are banning bots? Or maybe just manipulating the result. Or maybe just eventually consistent haha)

  • by trebor on 11/30/21, 6:29 PM

    You might be reading too much into this action.

    I have long ignored the number of dislikes on a video, because you cannot discern if the dislike was genuine dislike or offense—not a cancel mob, or a troll. Is it possible to look at 2000 dislikes, and then somehow rule out "bad" or "invalid" dislikes? Completely innocent videos get thousands of dislikes, even if it's only a kitten walking across the screen.

    So... the dislike button has already meant nothing. The data was skewed to begin with, in my opinion.

    If you wish to dissent I suggest you do so in the comments. I read those, and I count the number of "likes" on the comments. That says something far stronger than an arbitrary "10000 / 2000" count.

  • by aliswe on 11/30/21, 11:27 PM

    there is an Arabic saying:

    a fly sat on a big Palm tree. when the fly was going to take off, it told the palm:

    "i am leaving you!"

    to which the Palm tree replied:

    "who are you? I don't know you. neither did I notice when you came, nor will I notice when you leave"

  • by kazinator on 11/30/21, 8:11 PM

    If an arthritis remedy video has 11K likes, but 250K likes, that suggests there is some problem with the content of the video. Those users should be clicking "report" rather than "dislike".

  • by Gtex555 on 12/1/21, 1:57 AM

    I just use the like button as a bookmarker tbh

  • by bhhaskin on 11/30/21, 7:43 PM

    I am so tired of everything becoming a morals issue. Who cares! It's pretty simple; If you don't like it then don't use YouTube.

    I grew up with the internet and the two absolute rules were don't tell anyone your personal information and never believe anything you see or read on the internet.

    Somewhere along the path those rules were forgotten. 95% of the content out there is complete and utter bullshit. Regardless of some arbitrary like or dislike system.