I know we're not supposed to tell people to RTFA on here... but i feel like i should tell you that they are not removing the dislike button
The button itself will remain.
The power of resisting something comes from feeling like many other people are also resisting it. Removing the dislike count means the user can't see if he is alone in his opinion or not.
It's a shit move designed to promote further self censorship and control over the minds of the users.
What use is a gun if you remove the bullets?
> You can still dislike videos to further personalize and tune your recommendations
Not long ago in history, such a statement would have been totally incomprehensible, I mean completely nonsense. Even linguistically, there's so much baked into this. For starters, that there is an algorithm which which the viewer has a relationship with, and that the viewer wishes to further refine that relationship by expressing preferences. Yet, the interpretation of those preferences (by servers) are held within a black box.
The fact that this is truly a nuanced idea is why it's such a troubled case as a feature for the uneducated masses.
Ok, I'm being disingenuous, that is the Webster definition.
Do you think Google is satisfied that people will readily associate dislikes with metaphorical bullets?
Which is good or bad depending on whether or not you're in possession of functioning moral capacities
It turns out YouTube didn't see much benefit in providing a way to (metaphorically) shoot content creators. Taking the bullets out seems like a positive step for the community as a whole.
This is a ridiculous decision. When someone puts something into the public space and everyone dislikes it, that should visible to anyone. This is just going to make ridiculous conspiracy videos and other harmful material like racist propaganda seem more legit than it is viewed by the rest of the public.
Report videos that violates Youtube's guidelines, and start your own platform if you take issue with the engagement tools they offer. Arguably, the data shows that outrage drives unhealthy engagement [1], and this appears to reduce outrage driven engagement, no different than HN flamewar detection and other mechanisms to encourage more civil discourse.
EDIT: Youtube isn't the internet, nor "commons", it's a single web property. Lots of other forums for your speech (including your own Mastadon, Discourse, or Peertube instance).
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=outrage+drives+engagement
There was a user-submitted recipe app that had a similar problem, where rating system on recipes is challenging because does it imply that the recipe was incorrect, the food tasty, the writing poor? It is too hard to get that signal from a single point of "average rating"
What that means depends on the crowd.
(But I will admit that I often downvote things simply because they are inaccurate.)
The parent poster saying "I've never hit a like or dislike button in my life" is a little bit like saying "I've never thrown litter or picked up litter in my life". Both understandable, one respectable, the other a bit weird - if you like the environment you are in but leave all the litter collecting to others and don't contribute to it, what's that saying about you and your one-sided use of the environment?
If you want HN or YouTube to have stuff you like, and not be overrun by the wild west of the internet, and there are no paid editors like the newspapers of old, not adding to the collective voting is like saying "everyone else, moderate this for me into a place I like, thank you".
The Prime Directive protects lesser-evolved, unprepared civilizations from the dangerous tendency of well-intentioned starship crews to introduce advanced technology, knowledge, and values.
The videos that people fully watch, have a positive comment section, and receive many more likes than dislikes are the videos that should result from searches.
but as I wrote a few minutes ago ..
./dislike > /dev/null