Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, says he does not agree with hiding the number of dislikes on videos, stressing that this change could lead to the downfall of YouTube.
Learn more: YouTube hides “Dislikes” on videos!
“Why would YouTube make this change that is universally disliked? There is a reason, but it is not a good one and will not be revealed publicly,” Karim writes. “The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is a key feature of a platform that includes user-generated content. Why? Because user-generated content is not always good.”
YouTube began rolling out the UI change last week, saying it was removing public dislikes to address harassment some creators experience and to promote “respectful interactions between viewers and creators.” However, many YouTube users and creators criticized the decision, arguing that dislikes give the community a way to express their preferences, as well as quickly identify misleading and unwanted videos. Of course, YouTube said that users will still be able to dislike videos, but the total number will only be visible to the video creator, not users.
See also: Google: Hackers target YouTubers with cookie theft malware
Karim makes his point in an unusual way: he modified the description of the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, a video of himself at a young age. The video is called “Me at the zoo.” Karim changed the description of the video a few days ago: “When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is.” A few days later, the description was changed once again. An excerpt from the description is what we mentioned above: “The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is a key feature of a content platform…. Because not all user-generated content is good. It can’t be. In fact, most of it is not good. And that’s ok. […] The process works, and there’s a name for it: the wisdom of crowds. The process is interrupted when the platform interferes with it. Then the platform sees a continuous decline,” he says, among other things.
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This isn’t the first time Karim has used the “Me at the zoo” video to express his views on the platform. In 2013, when YouTube announced it would use Google+ to boost comments, Karim changed the video’s description to read: “Why do I need a Google+ account to comment on a video?”
You can see Jawed Karim's full announcement about hiding dislikes in the description of the "Me at the zoo" video on YouTube.
Source: The Verge
