Youtube to begin testing new interface without the Dislike Counts on Videos

31/03/2021

YouTube announced today that they will begin testing a new interface, in which dislikes on a video will not be publicly displayed. However, the dislike button will be there for you to downvote a video, and the creator of the video can also view the downvotes count in the Youtube Studio, but there will be no counter under the dislike button.

The company says that they want to try few different designs where dislike counts are no longer shown, and since its new interface there will be a selected number of users to see this change at first and there will be no way to opt-out of the test if you see the changes appear, you’ll only be able to share feedback.

YouTube also says that the new interface is based on creator feedback.

“We’ve heard from creators that the public dislike counts can impact their well-being and may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video — So, we’re testing designs that don’t include the visible like or dislike count in an effort to balance improving the creator experience, while still making sure viewer feedback is accounted for and shared with the creator.” Company said.

However the other side of story is that Dislike count really helped people to kind of predict if video is clickbait, spam or just not worth it before even starting the video.

👍👎 In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count. If you're part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks (example below!). pic.twitter.com/aemrIcnrbx

— YouTube (@YouTube) March 30, 2021

YouTube also shared one potential design that is being tested, on twitter, shows the same button layout but instead of the dislikes counter, the word “Dislike” appears underneath the thumbs down icon just like share, downlaod and save button.