Google down votes - a touchy subject

Yesterday I noticed a Tweet from YouTube about them testing to hide the down vote feature. It is not surprising that Google test that considering the absolute dislike bombing happening in recent years. I tweeted that that sounded like a good thing because down votes are a negative action and nothing good comes out of it. O boy, did people take offense to that!!

I have stepped into some nasty areas on Twitter where people go ballistic, but I was not prepared for the absolute mayhem that followed something as, in my eyes, trivial as the dislike function on YouTube. The very fact that YouTube was even testing to hide, not the dislike button, but the count of dislikes, sent people into a self justified rage. Here is the tweet:

So what about this is causing people to react so negative to this change? Well, that is a bit difficult to find out because as you can imagine when people want to defend a negative behavior they have a hard time explaining it. Like most trolls they stoop to insults and proclaiming that you are wrong, but without any arguments. That is what trolls do after all and I suspect that is one of the aspects why some people don't like this. Trolls like their hammers after all.

Things are not simple...

As always things are not quite as easy or one dimensional. I did get a few arguments, from people who know how to actually formulate them, that made sense. For example the lack of functional reporting system that actually have any effect or that removing the dislike count will increase toxic comments. Both very valid and accurate arguments in my opinion.

Most however stooped down to name-calling and I even found someone who actually was prejudice towards Sweden. Apparently we are too Open-minded and Progressive to be able to form logical discussions. Not quite sure if that is an actual insult or just someone who had a bad day trying to make the insult. I ended up banning quite a few people that were just mad and impossible to talk to in their affected state. It seems to be a common practice on Twitter these days if you want to talk to rational people.

Why are people so upset though? Let us break down the logic why there is a down vote and what it is used for, according to the people that responded. The dislike button is a relic from the old rating system. A long time ago YouTube had a star rating system, like so many other services back in the day. With the rise of voting features, like for the now dead Digg platform, YouTube changed the rating to an up and down vote feature back in 2010. The reasoning was that the star rating was not using the 2,3 and 4 ratings much, which explains a bit of what we now see. In 2019 YouTube said in an interview that they are looking into ways to combat the dislike mobs that seem to be growing in frequency lately.

What do people use it for (according to Twitter)?

1. One content creator said it was "invaluable" for learning what content was appreciated.
2. To warn people of malicious content such as scams or honeypots
3. To "hurt" people (yes, really) that deserved it
4. As a warning to content creators before unsubscribing
5. Visualize quality of the video

Now, there are some good points here, especially when considering not trusting the report system. It is also clear that people are using it in a lazy way, so it does act as a form of honey trap that does prevent some toxic comments. It fits well with the short attention span of today's young, but again that is not the full picture of course.

You want to hate, admit it!

There is another aspect to why people want to keep the dislike, even if most are too coward, or ignorant, to admit it: They like the power it provides. Some people just love to have the power to shut down people they don't like or just hit them with their virtual long finger of disdain.

These are the people that will join others that descend upon a creator to flood their content with dislikes and toxic comments. We have seen it with celebrities and companies that attracted the wrath of cancel culture. It gives them a sense of belonging and purpose while at the same time make them feel in control for once in their lives.

In a world where most people, especially young people, feel that they have no control and no power this is nothing to take lightly. I noticed that several people expressed feeling "muffled" or having the freedom of expression removed if the dislike button was removed or the count hidden. That is of course not true, but an important thing to consider when trying to understand the strong reactions.

So what should YouTube do?

Unfortunately I don't think there is much they can do at this point. Removing the dislike button would not stop the problem. As some of the people who actually showed an ability to carry a conversation pointed out, haters will hate and removing the dislike button would only lead to more hate elsewhere. It is a valid point and one I share, unfortunately.

Some things that YouTube might do to make the dislike mobs less problematic for the content creators:

• Use AI to detect large aggregation of dislikes with low video interaction. This can be used to temporarily disable the dislike button, or to hide the count. It can also trigger a flag for YouTube to manually review the situation.
• Use BigData analysis to detect users with disproportional amounts of dislikes versus video interaction. This can be used to block/ban accounts that are prone to trolling temporarily and then long term.
• Add function to disable all dislikes for all videos. This should ease a potential flood from a dislike mob by quickly turn on or off dislikes for a period of time.
• Add function to disable dislikes per video. Same as above, but for individual videos to counter specific attacks.
• Improve report functionality. This should not be a fire and forget process. It should be followed up as legal claims are and many reports should bury the video for a short period of time. False reports should result in warnings and consequently a ban.
• Add easy functions to administrate videos in the front end to disable functions with ease. Make it easy to enable/disable functions per video would make it faster and easier to respond to dislike mobs.
• Add a more rigorous validation process to force people to identify themselves. This increase the threshold to make accounts, which should lead to less offensive behavior. Probably would have negative side effects though, so it is a very aggressive approach.
• Force a certain degree of video interaction before you can vote. It was suggested by one user and it does not seem to be a very bad suggestion, except that it might again trigger people into comments instead.

Overall this has been an interesting experience into a world of complex social behavior that is more nuanced than first perceived. That is usually the case when you dig deep enough and it feels that for a day I got to dig slightly into this sub-culture and it was a pretty good experience.

Except for the nutcases of course, but I am used to those by now on Twitter 🙂