YouTube CEO Defends Removal Of Dislike Counts

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki advocates removing the hate count on videos in her annual letter outlining the company’s priorities for the year.

Many may be disappointed to hear that reconsidering the decision to remove what they don’t like isn’t in YouTube’s plans for this year, as Wojcicki is steadfast in her belief that it’s what’s best for the platform moving forward.

This is quite a contrast to how one YouTube co-founder feels about the decision, as he said it was a bad move.

• We see: YouTube co-founder is against removing dislikes

Wojcicki repeats much of what we’ve heard before from YouTube spokespeople, saying the dislikes were removed because it was sometimes a reflection of viewers’ opinion of the channel rather than the video itself.

We’ve heard from many of you about the removal of public hate charges on YouTube, and I know that decision was controversial. Some of you mentioned that dislikes helped decide which videos to watch.

However, people hate videos for many reasons, including some that have nothing to do with the video, which means that it’s not always an accurate way to select which videos to watch.

That’s why dislikes are never shown on the homepage, search results, or Up Next screens where users are most likely to select a video.”

Furthermore, Wojcicki repeats the company’s standard utterance that it’s best to remove dislikes site-wide since select channels have been targets of “hate attacks.”

“We’ve also seen dislikes harm parts of our ecosystem through hate attacks as people have actively increased the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos.”

Wojcicki says removing dislikes allegedly has no effect on viewership.

However, this does not take into account the impact on the user experience.

She continues:

So we experimented with removing the number of dislikes across millions of videos over the course of several months. In every way we looked at it, we saw no meaningful difference in viewership, regardless of whether there was a number of dislikes or not. Reduce hate attacks.

The “dislike” button remains on the site and channels can find the number of dislikes in YouTube Studio.

Dislikes will continue to be factored into YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, affecting videos suggested to users on the homepage.

Other highlights from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki’s annual letter

We learn in Wojcicki’s letter:

• YouTube Shorts have achieved 5 trillion views at all times.
• The number of channels that generate more than $10,000 in revenue annually increases by 40% year-on-year.
• YouTube channel memberships and paid digital goods were purchased or renewed over 110 million times in 2021.

YouTube’s main priorities for this year include the YouTube Short, helping creators earn more money, and improving the shopping experience.

YouTube Shorts

In the coming months, YouTube will expand on shorts by offering more ways to remix content.

YouTube will continue to allow creators to make money from short films through the Shorts box, which is now available in over 100 countries.

The Short Film Fund is not exclusive to YouTube Partner Program (YPP) creators. More than 40% of the creators who got paid from the Shorts box last year weren’t in the YouTube Partner Program.

This year, YouTube will test new ways for short film creators to create branded content through BrandConnect, a program that matches creators with brands.

Content monetization

Wojcicki highlights the following recent updates to content monetization, which will continue to be a priority this year:

• before posting checks: Allows creators to know if there is a copyright or ad suitability issue before they click “publish”.
• Advertiser-friendly guidelines updatesAdditional content monetization is allowed.
• More details about policy violations: The company is hiring more people to provide content creators with specific details about policy violations, such as timestamps of where the violation occurred.

YouTube shopping

YouTube will continue to work on a product tagging pilot program that gives viewers a chance to browse, learn about, and shop the products featured in videos.

The company is still in the early stages of testing how to combine shopping with shorts.

Live shopping streaming is also being tested in the US, South Korea and Brazil.

This year, YouTube will bring shopping to more creators and brands by partnering with commerce platforms like Shopify.

Source: Official YouTube blog

Featured image: Wachiwit/Shutterstock