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posted by martyb on Monday February 04 2019, @09:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the everything-in-moderation dept.

YouTube is trying to prevent angry mobs from abusing "dislike" button

YouTube's dislike button can be a source of anxiety for many creators, and now YouTube is considering a number of options to prevent viewers from abusing that tool. Tom Leung, director of project management at YouTube, posted an update to the Creator Insider channel recently in which he detailed some "lightly discussed" options for combatting "dislike mobs," or large groups of users who slam the dislike button on a video before watching the whole thing, or even watching the video at all.

[...] One of the new options YouTube has talked about is making those ratings invisible by default, so you wouldn't be able to see the number of likes or dislikes a video has. Other options include asking users to provide more information about why they disliked a video (possibly in the form of a checklist), removing the dislike count across the board, and removing the dislike button entirely.

Leung acknowledges that all of these options have pros and cons, and YouTube may not implement any of them after testing. Particularly, he notes that removing the dislike button from YouTube isn't the most democratic option, and it's quite extreme. Leung invites users to leave their own suggestions as to what YouTube should do in the comments of the update video.

While plenty of creators have fallen victim to dislike mobs, YouTube itself experienced a massive mob recently when its 2018 Rewind video became the most disliked video on the platform last year (as of today, it has 15 million dislikes). Millions of those dislikes may have been genuine, but it's possible that millions of other dislikes came from users hopping on the negativity bandwagon.

Is review/dislike mobbing a real problem? Is there a positivity bandwagon?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @10:21PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @10:21PM (#796306)

    Every bullshit, neo-prog video gets the ratio. Almost as if the public might be trying to tell "creators" something about their "woke" politics. Ditto Ghostbusters 2016, The Last Star Wars, Star Trek Diversity, SJW comic books, the NFL and any other manifestation of "Social Justice".

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @10:50PM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @10:50PM (#796325)

    Oh GODS they started showing women and MINORITIES in lead roles???? WTF THIS COUNTRY IS GOING STRAIGHT IN THE CRAPPER!!!

    pffffft

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @11:04PM (10 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @11:04PM (#796331)

      Oh GODS they started showing women and MINORITIES in lead roles???? WTF THIS COUNTRY IS GOING STRAIGHT IN THE CRAPPER!!!

      Nobody objected to Sigourney Weaver or Sidney Poitier having lead roles. Could it be that their movies offered more than vapid identity politics? Pffft!

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @11:45PM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @11:45PM (#796356)

        Ghostbusters 2016, The Last Star Wars, Star Trek Diversity, SJW comic books, the NFL and any other manifestation of "Social Justice"

        Didn't see Ghostbusters so I can't comment, but from the comments I read it wasn't that big of a deal except the people triggered by switching out male for female. Plenty of racist comments about the black chick.

        The latest Star Wars movies are pretty crap, but not for SJW reasons. The most "SJW" thing you can say there is the fleet leader had dyed hair and boobs, with a bit of "rich people are assholes living off the poor" here and there. Hardly "SJW" politics.

        SJW comic books? lol, how dare people push their personal beliefs in their artwork! back to mein khampf....

        NFL and taking I knee, you have to be racist or racist friendly to get bent out of shape by that. Not shocking that

        TL:DR - racists are upset that western culture no longer caters to their shitty world view and are unable to simply NOT WATCH it.

        Wake me up when there is something more to worry about then your delicate fee fees

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:00AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:00AM (#796365)

          TL:DR - racists are upset that western culture no longer caters to their shitty world view

          Really? [thewrap.com] If your world view centers on calling people "racist" to sidestep criticism of your easily disprovable narrative, it's you with the shitty world view!

        • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:05AM

          by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:05AM (#796367) Homepage Journal

          N.F.L., we're not boycotting N.F.L. anymore. Thanks to those who did -- because of you, we won. But that one wasn't about race. It had nothing to do with race. ZERO. It was about RESPECT. For Anthem, Flag and Country. God Bless the U.S.A.! 🇺🇸

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:33AM (2 children)

          by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:33AM (#796377)

          > The latest Star Wars movies are pretty crap, but not for SJW reasons. The most "SJW" thing you can say there
          > is the fleet leader had dyed hair and boobs, with a bit of "rich people are assholes living off the poor" here and there.
          > Hardly "SJW" politics.

          They forgot that you are supposed to package your social commentary as the normal consequence of actions undertaken in the logical context of a well-built story.

          In Ep. VIII, too much of what we got were illogical actions which didn't make sense in the context of a story that didn't make sense, didn't fit its own universe canon, and even defied the in-universe laws of physics. When you throw social commentary at people who don't see it justified or useful in any other way than "because I just decided so" (Dumbledore is gay...), then you deserve the flak you get.
          Said flak should be delivered in the form of an energy beam NOT magically curving in space (a contradiction with literally the first SW scene ever)

          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:42AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:42AM (#796423)

            I said the movies were crap, I just disagree that they were pushing some evillll "SJW" narrative. What exactly was the social commentary? Are we trying to shift the overton window so far right that decrying slavery becomes boorish?

          • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:23PM

            by Freeman (732) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:23PM (#796809) Journal

            The whiny brat in Ep. VII was enough for me to swear off Disney's main star wars series. In contrast, Rogue One was really well done and Han Solo was just fun.

            --
            Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:59AM

          by Arik (4543) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:59AM (#796457) Journal
          The biggest problem with the Ghostbusters thing was that it was really a horrible script. It's what the film industry has taken to calling a 'reboot' meaning that they just threw the original in the trash can and started over with nothing but the name and some very basic level of the concept. I'm not sure the writer of the script ever saw the original movie. So there are a lot of Ghostbusters fans that were suckered into going to see it (and dragging others with them) expecting some homage to one of their favorite movies and they paid their money and they weren't happy with what they got.

          So, sure, maybe there are a dozen people somewhere that were upset by females on screen per se, but I really doubt that was any significant part of the backlash. Most people were upset at what felt like a rip-off, they went to see that long awaited Ghostbusters sequel and they didn't get it.

          Incidentally, we might take note that the studio has implicitly recognized this, and is now talking about *another* new Ghostbusters movie - a sequel with some of the original stars at least getting cameos rather than a "reboot."

          "The latest Star Wars movies are pretty crap, but not for SJW reasons. The most "SJW" thing you can say there is the fleet leader had dyed hair and boobs, with a bit of "rich people are assholes living off the poor" here and there. Hardly "SJW" politics."

          I guess you could say that's technically correct, as it's not their *politics* specifically so much as the underlying philosophy. It's a collectivist philosophy and committed collectivist ideologues seem to have great difficulty writing what we of more classical and liberal leanings consider good characters - precisely because good characters are fundamentally *individual* and individual journeys are not what they want to focus on. So they write one-dimensional cutout characters, characters that are mostly just there to represent a group, with no real life of their own and no individual importance. Without personal reasons for the plot to advance, there's a tendency to rely on Deus ex Machina, and with no desire to portray the struggles and triumph of a flawed hero against an implacable and ultimately unconquerable universe, the 'hero' role is usually filled by a Mary Sue.

          "SJW comic books? lol, how dare people push their personal beliefs in their artwork!"

          There's absolutely no problem with pushing personal beliefs in artwork - granted.

          But consider the situation. You push your personal beliefs in your comic - your fans don't like it. They say they feel you're just preaching, and not writing good stories; but they were fans for the stories so they're dissatisfied. So you're find to do it, and they're fine to quit buying it if they don't like it. All good so far. But THEN you don't like that and you start calling your ex-fans racists? See that's where things went over the line, and you did it. The insulted fans won't be back, and the only ones that you did NOT insult were the ones that actually are racists, can't you see how that works?

          "NFL and taking I knee, you have to be racist or racist friendly to get bent out of shape by that."

          Well apparently not, because that's exactly what you're doing here.

          And I actually *applauded* the first guy that did that. I absolutely respect not just their right to do it, but the point which they are trying to make. I'm not sure it's the best way to make the point but that's their call to make.

          But to say that to disagree with me you have to be a racist? That's offensive, that's slanderous, and just think about it tactically for a moment. Do you want to sling the racist accusation around so freely that it loses all meaning? That's just about where we're at. Not long ago it was universally acknowledged as one of the worst things you could possibly be accused of in America - the only thing worse than a racist was a child molester. But we have people throwing around the insult so promiscuously so shamelessly so reflexively at anyone that disagrees with them, that this is changing. People have already become desensitized to it. It's like the boy that cried wolf. Keep crying that every little thing you don't like is racist and you'll wake up one day to find that no one pays any attention to it at all.

          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:03PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:03PM (#796618)

          TL:DR - racists are upset that western culture no longer caters to their shitty world view

          Is it still racism if you just want to watch stuff from and about your own culture?

          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:57PM

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:57PM (#796838) Journal

            Is it still racism if you just want to watch stuff from and about your own culture?

            Probably not. But, getting angry when minorities do the same probably is.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:36AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:36AM (#796567)

        Though the film was a box-office smash and received 10 Oscar nominations, even [in 1968] it was widely ridiculed as dated by liberal critics. The hero, played by the first black Hollywood superstar, Sidney Poitier, was seen as too perfect and too “white” — an impossibly handsome doctor with Johns Hopkins and Yale on his résumé and a Nobel-worthy career fighting tropical diseases in Africa for the World Health Organization.

        (source [nytimes.com])

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:43AM (#796568)

    The new She-Ra (the one where the young girl trans-forms into a boy)