According to a report from the Verge, YouTube development team is looking to disable the downvote button. The news around the block is that they are looking to do this in order to eliminate the mob spamming from their platform.
YouTube’s director of content management, Tim Leung, has addressed the situation where certain content creators are being targeted by the dislike mob and their content ends up not being recommended.
How serious are the YouTube development team?
Leung does mention that this concept is currently being lightly discussed and there are three options on the table. Although these are just being lightly discussed, YouTube’s director of content management said that they want a solution to this.
What are YouTube’s three potential solutions?
The first and most extreme option is that they disable the dislike button from their platform entirely. Leung said that this seems an extreme option and that this is not the most democratic option.
Second option is to enhance something which is already available. YouTube creators can hide their like to dislike ratio on their videos. But, with this option, viewers will be able to like or dislike but it will not be made public. Only the content creators will be able to see the ratio.
The third option for YouTube would be to ask for a reason for the dislike. Leung said YouTube can ask a viewer to check a box on why they are giving the dislike. He added that this would be really difficult to implement as the data load would increase a lot and it will be complicated. But, at the same time, YouTube creators will get a reason why their content is being disliked.
Source: TheVerge
