YouTube CEO Explains Why The Dislike Button Was Removed
The CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, has explained the company's controversial decision to remove the dislike button. YouTube is one of the biggest websites out there thanks to its seemingly infinite amount of content. It's a great social media platform filled with entertainment, ways to learn, and much more. For the most part, it has stayed pretty much the same since its inception, but has evolved to become a business opportunity for creators and much more. Nonetheless, the changes that YouTube does make often end up being controversial. In 2021, the platform removed the dislike button from public view. The button still technically exists, but the metrics are only viewable by the creator. This resulted in YouTubers like PewDiePie expressing annoyance over the removal of the dislike button.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki discussed the matter with Ludwig Ahgren during an hour-long interview. She largely noted that the tool was unhelpful for public use and perhaps fed into some toxicity. "We knew that it was going to be controversial," said Wojcicki. "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. 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."
Wojcicki also stated that YouTube has no plans to let users toggle the dislike button for their channel. Ultimately, the dislike button did let creators know how the public felt about things. The trailer for the latest GTA V remaster was hit with tons of dislikes on YouTube, which may be valuable feedback to a developer like Rockstar Games, but also could be harmful or negative for a smaller creator. It seems like the public dislike button will be a thing of the past unless a significant change is made.
What do you think about the removal of the YouTube dislike button? Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.