Is it Time That YouTube Removed the Dislike Button?

Today we live in a society where there is no escaping social media. Whilst many platforms have taken steps to prevent online bullying and harassment YouTube seems to be lagging behind somewhat. Only last week, one of my Facebook friends had a comment that he made removed on Facebook because he called a friend a rude word in jest. However, YouTube is littered with hate comments and political propaganda. Both in the comments and the content that they openly allow on their platform.

I noticed on one creator's video, there were comments from people calling her disgusting and stupid, yet, YouTube allow these comments and the accounts of these people to remain on their platform. Only yesterday I noticed someone on YouTube that called themselves “Women's Rights Were a Mistake” and made a comment on a video about how China was the world-leading country in the world because women had fewer rights. Firstly, anyone with that username should be banned from Google completely and all comments made in relation to equality and diversity should be investigated. Yet, this user was openly there on the platform, spreading hate against women.

However, as well as the nasty comments, repulsive content and political propaganda that YouTube allow on their platform, there is also the debate over the dislike button.

Back in 2019, Tom Leung, director of project management at YouTube stated that that the platform was considering its options to combat what he called, ‘dislike mobs’. However, I could not find any information regarding the decision made by YouTube. I assume they decided to keep it as it is still on the platform. Further looking online, there are some Change petitions and posts where creators are asking for it to be removed, to make the site less negative.

The majority of videos on YouTube, especially ones with lots of views will have at least one dislike and let's face it, we have probably all disliked a video at some point, I know I certainly have. One argument is that the dislike button allows creators to see which videos viewers like and did not like. However, this means that the likes and dislikes have to come from genuine viewers and not click farms and dislike mobs. One of the points noted by Mr Leung was that removing the dislike button would not be very democratic because not all dislikes come from mobs. However, how do creators know the genuine likes from the dislikes and isn't the comments section there for viewers to give creators feedback?

No matter what the video content. It could be a video of baby animals or fluffy clouds and someone would be waiting to hit the dislike button. Whilst in the comments, viewers can tell the creators why they may dislike their video, with the dislike button, there is no explanation and the dislikes often come from people who have not even watched the video.

As well as comment trolls, YouTube has a large number of dislike trolls that make it their mission to spread negativity across the platform by disliking videos just for the sake of disliking them. But who has time to do that, right? Well, internet trolls lurk in every crevice of the web. Armed with nothing to do and a whole world to terrorize, sadly today there is no escaping the internet troll.

Indeed, the dislike button on YouTube for some creators can be helpful. It shows them which videos are more popular than others. Unfortunately, the dislike button can be completely useless when it comes to constructive feedback as the creator has no way of knowing why that viewer has disliked their video, that is if it came from a person and not a bot.

I read one article online which said that if people cannot deal with negative comments and dislikes on their video, then YouTube probably is not the place for them. However, this should not be the case. Creators should have the freedom to create content on the platform without the negativity. That statement is like saying that you should expect abuse to be hurled at you when you walk down the street. Online abuse should not be something that people just accept.

For new creators on YouTube, negative comments and dislike mobs can be offputting. Until creators learn the ropes, get to grips with making and editing videos, their early content is probably not going to be their best. However, if they are plagued with dislikes and negative comments, perhaps it may put them off and prevent them from contributing to the platform.

With the amount of negativity in the world today, surely YouTube should remove the dislike button as well as clamping down to bullies that litter the platform.