YouTube CEO Explains Why They Removed The Dislike Button

If you’re a fellow Millennial or Generation Z, it’s hard to remember a time before YouTube. The video-sharing social platform first appeared on the scene in 2005 and in the 17 years since, has gone on to launch the careers of some of the internet’s biggest stars as well as some iconic memes. Think PewDiePie, or “Charlie Bit My Finger”.

One of YouTube’s greatest assets has always been the fact that it's interactive thanks to the like and dislike buttons, the comments section and of course, the option to go live. As such, the power of YouTube’s audiences is immense, and has even at times led to prominent YouTubers like Jenna Marbles being forced into an early online retirement. Recently though, some of that power has been taken away.

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In November, YouTube made the shock decision to hide some of the dislike button’s functionality. Whilst the button still exists, the actual number of dislikes is hidden from viewers and creators can only view the number by looking at their channel’s metrics. In an interview with YouTuber and streamer Ludwig - full name Ludwig Anders Ahgren - YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki offered some insight into the decision.

“We knew that it was going to be controversial,” Susan began. “We have to do what is the right thing for the ecosystem as a whole and running the website as a whole, we have access to data that individual creators might not have, meaning that we’re looking at all the statistics of how overall the platform is performing. We’re not just running one experiment, we’re running many over a period of time.”

“Dislikes, we heard loud and clear why many people were unhappy with that decision,” she continued. “We also saw the impact it was having on a lot of new creators and that’s bad. We need to support new creators and how they’re growing for the long term health of our ecosystem.”

There you have it. The reasoning makes perfect sense. What function does a dislike button serve other than to tell someone you hate their content. It seems YouTube is trying to promote itself as a kinder platform. Susan also shutdown the possibility of being able to toggle your channel's dislikes so it looks like this feature is safely staying in the past.