“Honestly, you’re gonna get used to it.” – Matt Koval, YouTube spokesperson.
Speaking as a professional in IT and Social Media, this is by far the worse thing that’s happened to free speech. Although we all suffer targeted bot attacks once in a while, suppressing “dislike” data from viewers creates a utopian platform where everything broadcasted is gospel – ultimately people won’t be trusted with making up their own minds and are limited to what the platform algorithm dictates. Russian misinformation farms will likely continue to win over community-driven data.
The Scene
When FB limited the “view all posts” and forced algorithm filters, we said it was bad. It still is. I get the same whitewash on my timeline with no way of controlling or manipulating the algorithm to see what I see. Mark said we’ll get used to it, but even after several years I still immensely dislike the fact that I can’t control what I see on my feed. Ironically, they did introduce an “angry” emoji, when coupled with the “laugh” emoji you can pretty much tell the content is subpar. An overpriced marketplace listing? Laughs. CCTV footage of a racist Karen? Angries. See, it works!
I remain on the fence about META, partially interested in all the new tech coming out with full “life” immersion experience and partially horrified that the post-internet era seems to move us up to 90% disconnect from the old 20% human word.
Instagram retains some sanity, I usually see all posts chronologically and they’ve never had a dislike button. If you don’t like a picture just scroll past it, not a lot of “opinions” are no this platform.
Twitter is getting harder to navigate, and my time there has been discouraged by the super-sensitive reactions by all the anons. I only use it for technology feedback and cannot freely express any onions there. Although twitter remains the platform with the least amount of interference with it’s content, the community taken over has done that on their behalf.
Websites are my favorite. There are very few consumer rating platforms that (poorly) rank websites for you, and are mainly used to check if it’s a spam website like Trustpilot does. Ultimately there is SEO and how good your content is.
Politics
- Left wingers will say it’s creating a “safe zone” where people can freely voice their opinions.
- Right wingers will say it’s fascism enforced the technology overlords.
Obviously it’s neither, it’s just another company try to generate more revenue by protecting it’s interests. Was it influenced by the huge amount of dislikes the sitting president gets on his platforms? Probably yes. But so did the last one.
Leaves you wondering why this decision was pushed now, a few weeks after the METAverse was launched. Utopian ideologies don’t work in the real world, and without face-to-face repercussions the virtual world is going to get real dark real soon especially that marketers can now broadcast their videos without fear of repercussion.
Technology
The psychology of negative thoughts isn’t lost on me, I realize that one shouldn’t dwell on derogatory remarks and unconstructive criticism, but in a virtual world where all news is opinion-based, one is left with little to sift through the information rubble.
Fox News lying? CNN sermon on their demi-gods? 3rd world leader hypocritical speech? COVID-19 censorship? Generally incorrect information about any subject?
You can tell by ratio of likes to dislikes that helps you form an opinion about the creator – not the topic. 1.2% liked it. Of almost 800 thousand views, 1% liked this. What YouTube wants you to see is 9.5K people liked this! But hide the forty-three thousand people that disliked it – that’s 5.7%.
5.7% > 1.2% facts.
The Content Creator
Not a personal attack on the creator, but he’s a content creator – Youtube’s fall guy. So don’t take his laid back conversation about how all this is backed up by research, it’s very likely scripted and reviewed by legal/marketing/operation teams to make the change swiftly and hopefully silently.
The dislike button not tell you how bad this video is anymore.
The Ethical Dilemma
There are no easy choices when it comes to ethical dilemmas that put you between your bottom-dollar revenue (rock) and public information transparency (hard place), but if you ask me if this was the wrong decision I’d say no, there is no right or wrong here, it’s just something that raises a red flag in the back of my mind.
Socrates was executed because Athens wanted to censor his philosophy which they claimed was “corrupting the youth”, and that was in 399 BC. Here we are, almost 2 and a half millennia later, claiming the modern world is all about free speech! The hypocrisy of allowing Taliban and ISIS leaders to display the beheaded figures of their victims, but censoring an unliked US sitting president for “inciting violence” as part of a far left Social Media campaign shows that the big guys aren’t playing fair anymore.
If their revenue is affected, they will fight dirty and manipulate our perception of any content created through their platforms. This censorship of the dislike button is blatant manipulation of public opinion to create a haven for investors – community management be damned.
Contrary to what Matt claims, in my personal experience dealing with Russian and Lebanese Troll farms targeting opinion-based bloggers, the victims actually take pride in being the focus of such troll farms because it shows their content makes an impact on their community – big brother has taken notice and is trying to shut them down. The reverse is not true for brand names, no Troll Farm will attack Cinnabon when they make a insensitive ad – that’s all genuine dislike of the post. So what’s the real motive for removing the dislike count and why the efforts to mask it with this misleading 3-min video? Guess we’ll never know unless someone leaks it – God forbid that whistle-blower gets censored! But in the meantime we’ll have to learn to adapt to this new mentality where we’re not allowed to utilize these community platforms with unfiltered opinions. Guess Matt was right, we’re gonna have to get used to it, still doesn’t mean that I like it.
As always, watch the video and make your own mind up, and if you dislike this article feel free to trash me in the comments.
