YouTube implemented its decision to make the dislike button invisible.

“At the time, YouTube explained that public dislike counts can affect creators’ well-being and may motivate targeted campaigns to add dislikes to videos…” reporter Sarah Perez explained YouTube’s reasoning. “YouTube said it had also heard from smaller creators and others who were just getting started on the platform that they felt they were being unfairly targeted by dislike attacks. The experiment confirmed this was true — creators with smaller channels were targeted with dislike attacks more than larger creators were.”

YouTube released its official statement regarding this change on Nov. 10. 

Part of the statement read as follows: “We [the YouTube team] want to create an inclusive and respectful environment where creators have the opportunity to succeed and feel safe to express themselves. This is just one of many steps we are taking to continue to protect creators from harassment. Our work is not done, and we’ll continue to invest here.”

However, most of the backlash came from content creators – the group of people YouTube wanted this change to protect.

“Let’s Play YouTuber Jacksepticey… [makes] an interesting note, journalist  Brittini Finley said. “No longer showing the number of dislikes on a video won’t expose content that is objectively bad and harmful, such as scams. This could also impact clickbait, as the community will downvote videos that don’t deliver the content the title of the video might imply.”

Let’s Play Youtubers are gamer creators who film themselves playing video games with voiceover commentary. 

YouTube fans are also displeased with the change. 

“I don’t think [removing dislikes] is a good decision to be honest… [because] negative feedback is necessary,” freshman Aeris Lau said. “It helps, in general, seeing other people’s thoughts of certain topics. People can put your thoughts into words that you have but just can’t word it right.” 

Fans and content creators alike are displeased with YouTube turning the dislike count invisible.