President Joe Biden must be a happy, old man now. YouTube is testing a feature to hide the ‘dislike’ button from the public eye. This is to say that although users will be able to dislike a video, the number of dislikes the video has cumulatively received will not be visible publicly. Only the video creator and channel owners will be able to access data pertaining to the number of dislikes their videos are receiving. YouTube provided a lame excuse for doing the same and said that the dislikes on a video may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s 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!),” YouTube said through its Twitter handle. The new feature, which deprives users of transparency and statistics which can go a long way in revealing the quality, authenticity and reliability of channels and video creators is facing severe backlash on social media across the world.
👍👎 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
Meanwhile, that the said feature will tremendously benefit President Joe Biden on YouTube has not been given a miss at all. Biden, who has proven to be a disaster in the White House and is becoming unpopular with each passing day, has his YouTube channel filled with videos whose dislikability is astronomically high. According to RT, some commenters suggested that President Joe Biden might be happy to see dislikes disappear from YouTube. Since Biden took office in January, every single video posted by the White House has gotten more dislikes than likes. Often, videos of Biden speaking earn more than ten times as many thumbs down as thumbs up.
Just admit you are protecting Biden from further embarrassment. Feedback from audience is crucial to running a channel. But you will make this decision knowing it's a terrible one and do it anyway. Fuck YouTube and fuck big tech. https://t.co/PP67S2kgmR
— Woke Societies (@wokesocieties) March 30, 2021
https://twitter.com/MichaelOxbiggIV/status/1376950259667066880?s=20
Did you seriously do this just for Joe Biden? https://t.co/8b47YLkoZg
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) March 31, 2021
https://twitter.com/FrogsRevenge/status/1376966352158797824?s=20
Notably, the demand for such a feature – hiding the visibility of the number of dislikes a video receives was not demanded by YouTube users. Yet, the online streaming platform is claiming that the appeals of video creators have played a tremendous role in the Google-owned platform bringing about the said change. It is not yet clear if the White House or Joe Biden’s administration were in any way involved to get the dislike button hidden for the global public. It is not entirely impossible, however, that they played a key role in ensuring that YouTube shoves down the new update down users’ throats.
Despite the mainstream liberal media and vested interest groups waging a disinformation and slander campaign against former President Donald Trump, his channel (which has been suspended by YouTube, by the way) did not see the gigantic number of dislikes on videos which Joe Biden is currently faced with. The number of dislikes the videos of Joe Biden are receiving is quite telling of his increasing unpopularity. Once officially rolled out, the hiding of the dislike button by YouTube will help Joe Biden coverup the palpable image-crisis he faces in the United States.