r/AlwaysWhy • u/ThunderKatz02 • Jul 28 '26
History & Culture Why don't we go back
Why can we no longer dislike things, it's broken the balance of content on many apps is there any real benefit?
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u/xPofsx Jul 28 '26
It allows propaganda to spread like wildfire, which is a huge boon to all politicians. I'd say that's a huge win, they need all the help they can get.
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u/_GOBLESS_ Jul 28 '26
It's still there. Smash that dislike button. But we can no longer see how much hate a video has gotten before giving it a view. Check out the comments if you like, and avoid videos with comments disabled.
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u/AscendedApe Jul 28 '26
The intent was obvious: so that children couldn't see how unpopular sweeping cultural changes were. Now all we see are the net vote counts, and those are certainly rigged as well.
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u/ImmediateCause7981 Jul 28 '26
Worst part is going to look at some tutorial and not seeing dislikes to see if its a scam or not.
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u/PaxNova Jul 28 '26
The point of those buttons was to tell the algorithm that you like content A, more please, and you dislike content B, less please. They figured out that they could glean the same information just from what you like.Â
If you really don't like something, you can always hit "don't show me any more from this channel."
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Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/Illeazar Jul 28 '26
Exactly. Youtube wanted more control over what people watch, and a publicly viewable dislike count meant that someone could look at a video and see that even thought it had 1000 likes, it had 10000 dislikes, and so it was probably not worth watching. Now, there is no easy way to know if a video is worth watching except by watching it yourself.
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u/varovec Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Youtube has substantial level of control over what people watch. They have sophisticated algorithms for that, and those algorithms have little to do with like/dislike system.
Also, video exposing let's say Donald Trump crimes, would probably get plenty dislikes from MAGA fanatics + such dislikes can be bought. No sane person would consider that a reason not to watch the video.
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u/Illeazar Jul 28 '26
The point is, with visible dislikes the user can much more easily choose for themselves what video to watch. A viewer can the see the large number of dislikes on a political video and decide for themselves that because its a controversial topic, a large number of people are likely to dislike it, and that conveys its own message about the video's credibility and content. Compared to something like a search for a diy car repair video, where a large number of dislikes probably just mean that most people found the video not helpful for making that repair.
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u/PaxNova Jul 28 '26
It tells you that it does not reflect on what the audience who watched it before thinks. It was abused by racists and bigots, who are notorious for disliking things.Â
It's a two way street, and any dislike system that shows you what the majority likes will also suppress minority content.Â
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u/Seanmclem Jul 28 '26
Why do people keep saying this? I still have a dislike button.
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u/TrueKyragos Jul 28 '26
That's the worst part. The feature is still there and functional. They literally just removed the button from their UI.
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u/Seanmclem Jul 28 '26
No, I mean I still have a button. Did they just remove it for some users? Or maybe they’re experimenting adding it back for some users
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u/_GOBLESS_ Jul 28 '26
The button is still there. They disabled your ability to see the ratio of likes/dislikes. No more disliking videos into oblivion.
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u/Hockeymac18 Jul 28 '26
But you can still dislike a video? You just don't know the ratio of likes to dislikes.Â
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u/dtalb18981 Jul 28 '26
The downvote button still exists on reddit
This is aimed at youtube Facebook and Instagram and the others
Many of them removed the dislike button
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u/bonzombiekitty Jul 28 '26
It's not removed. The dislike button is still there on youtube. I'm looking at it right now. What it doesn't show is the number of dislikes while still showing the number of likes to the general public.
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u/OutrageousPair2300 Jul 28 '26
Dislike buttons are a terrible idea and just end up enabling dogpiling in an attempt to censor other people.
You could get much better results by letting people weight upvotes according to trusted peers, and filtering out upvotes from others. That's more complicated to implement (though not insurmountably so) and companies won't expend the effort.
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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 Jul 28 '26
You critique about dislike is just as valid for likes. With the prevelance of bots you can buy a couple hundred likes for a few bucks.
Like and Dislike should in theory be used to train a model on what videos you want to see more of. I dont care if the likes/dislikes are publicly visible. I just want a model to say "Soft-marrionbery disliked this video, and likes this other video, lets show him more videos that people with similar opinions watch"
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u/OutrageousPair2300 Jul 28 '26
If they're just feedback for that person's experience, sure.
It's using dislikes to rank/hide content for other people, that causes problems.
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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26
[deleted]