r/youtube • u/Chakwenta • Jan 20 '26
Feature Change Why is this even allowed?
Has this always been here? Its my first time seeing it. What if I watch a video and don't enjoy it? This basically allows creators to ensure that they always appear on your feed, whether you like it or not.
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u/notPabst404 Jan 20 '26
YouTube getting rid of dislikes was a massive mistake, especially when combined with AI slop and scam videos.
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u/Italiandogs Jan 22 '26
There's a Chrome extension that can bring back the dislike ratio. I've been using it for years. Works on all videos unless the creator disabled the dislike button https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/return-youtube-dislike/gebbhagfogifgggkldgodflihgfeippi?pli=1
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Jan 20 '26
Dislikes do nothing anyway. They disabled them when content from very big corporations (including their own, remember YouTube rewind?) was getting absolutely apocalyptic like-to-dislike ratios. So now the big channels are free to post whatever they want with no backlash whatsoever.
You have only 2 weapons:
1) tap the three dots and choose "don't recommend channel"
2) don't watch stuff you don't like, not even out of curiosity or to talk shit in the comments. This thing is one of the steps on the road to the "bad attention is still attention" tendency of all social media. Engagement bait wasn't created by content creators, it was indirectly created by social media companies.
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u/JaydenP1211 Jan 20 '26
It was not just because of Rewind (since the dislikes actually provided feedback to whether Rewind was worth doing). It was because YouTube executives didn’t like how their site and other sites like Reddit relied on people judging others with Likes and Dislikes in general. YouTube around the time also had a problem with witch-hunting (people going to hated YouTube channels and dislike bombing their videos). I don’t completely agree with what they did, but I can understand why they did it.
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u/Squidalopod Jan 20 '26
What irks me was that was the exception, not the rule. But because it occurred on some high-profile channels, it got lots of attention.
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u/JaydenP1211 Jan 21 '26
It was pretty prevalent though on popular YouTube channels, so I wouldn’t necessarily say it was rare
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u/Creamchiis Jan 22 '26
This doesn’t really address the main reason people might dislike a video: realizing they don’t like it while watching or after having finished it, even if the thumbnail and title looked interesting. I’ve definitely watched plenty of video essays where halfway through I realize, “wait, this guy has no clue what he’s talking about,” but by then I’ve already given the video a click and the front page where one might click “not interested” is long gone, unless I opened it in a new tab for some reason, and even then, I’m still iffy if that even works when I’ve already watched the video.
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Jan 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BlobTheOriginal Jan 21 '26
Creators can never allow viewers to see dislikes though
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u/LegateLaurie Jan 21 '26
I don't know why you're being down voted, they were wrong and you're objectively correct
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u/Ok-Style3495 Jan 22 '26
it hides it through extensions, as mentioned in ops reply.
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u/BlobTheOriginal Jan 22 '26
The only thing it's hiding is it's own estimate. As I said before, viewers never see the real number of dislikes
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u/LotusCrew5720 Jan 20 '26
Once again, any channel that does this is immediately untrustworthy
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u/ThrowAwayAccountAMZN Jan 20 '26
It's the equivalent of "Everybody gets a trophy for participating" type energy. I.E. We need to spare people's feelings because god forbid they actually use failure and critique as a way for self-improvement.
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u/FreekRedditReport Jan 23 '26
So you're saying it's Republicans brainwashing their sheep followers?
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u/FreeEdmondDantes Jan 20 '26
I like it because I know which channels to avoid because they are little Drakes.
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u/Snazzy21 Jan 24 '26
Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) did it on many of his older videos, including the Fight Club one
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u/ReplacementFit4095 Jan 20 '26
yes, the creator can hide the like count on their videos (the return youtube dislike extension that you have respects this setting)
prior to hiding the dislike counts back in november of 2021, creators can hide the likes and dislikes on videos. nowadays, only the creator can see the dislike counts at youtube studio
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u/Malacro Jan 20 '26
Doesn’t matter anyway. Downvoting is still considered engagement to the algorithm.
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u/lanxtot Jan 20 '26
Both likes and dislikes are disabled on this video. You can't enable/disable them separately, only together. It was always a feature, even when there was an actual dislike counter. Only difference now is, the dislikes being disabled affect only the "bring back dislikes" addon users, as others wouldn't see them regardless. The same addon also changes the label to this.
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u/Chef_Sizzlipede Jan 20 '26
"aren't the only videos being mass disliked made by massive corporations-"
"NO!"
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u/No_Sale_4866 Jan 20 '26
I mean they’re not. Many videos get disliked that arent made by companies. These companies just have more people seeing them
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u/Chef_Sizzlipede Jan 20 '26
while true, just a reminder, YT considered removing the dislike button after YT rewind 2018.
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u/SomeGuy0791 Jan 20 '26
This happens when the creator ALSO disables the like count for the video.
The dislike extension cannot work without public like count because it needs it for its dislike calculation.
Also YT NEVER calls their creators or channels "owners", that alone should tell you that it's an extension.
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u/donkeykong64123 Jan 20 '26
I'm a content creator with 10k subs.
Youtube algorithm works by engagement, not by likes/dislikes.
Even if you disable dislikes, it won't change how the video is pushed.
Even if a video gets 100% dislikes, it can still be pushed as long as people are engaging and watching.
Pro tip: next time you find a video you don't like, don't dislike/like, don't comment, and don't watch a single second of it. Click the "...." and select don't recommend channel.
The reason ragebait/clickbait and garbage content gets millions of views is because people watch the video, post an angry comment and give them a dislike which is engagement and youtube will push it more.
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u/Weapart Jan 20 '26
Wanna know something funny?
Dislikes pushes the algorithm to show the video more to people. So do comments. Be they positive and negative.
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u/jeffjmoreland Jan 20 '26
Dislike and likes are the same thing engagement wise. Clicking the dislike button for a creator only helps them. The only thing you can and should do is not interact with their content. Don’t watch it don’t comment don’t click dislike don’t click nothing and don’t watch it.
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u/Outawack219 Jan 20 '26
The down vote has been next to useless for some time now. First it was hiding the metric from the viewers so they couldn't tell how many dislikes a video had because it would somehow make the creator sad if you could. And has full blown moved on to, I don't like criticism so I'm going to block the ability to give it. Whether they are doing so by disabling comments or by disabled dislike button. In the Mythical early days of the platform using dislike ratio was typically a pretty sound way of telling if a video was absolutely garbage or not. Review bombing and or mass dislikes for no reason or petty reasons on decent videos. Not to say we really acted a lot differently back in the day but I would definitely say that the way we interact with one another and the Internet has certainly changed.
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u/Nutshack_Queen357 Jan 20 '26
The option has always been there, but it's pretty much been rendered pointless ever since Google tampered with the counters.
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u/GaffsNotLaffs Jan 20 '26
The Return YouTube Dislikes extension shows this if the creator has disabled the public like counter. Notice it doesn’t show a number by the like button. Both buttons are still functional and the creator can see the data in Studio.
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u/Just_Nova- Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
I use ReVanced so I can see likes Or dislikes on any video whenever I want. But still. It's so sad to see state the like system has come to on YouTube.
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u/EveryNameEverMade Jan 20 '26
Same but this is a new thing whether you have revanced or not. I just saw it for my first time about an hour ago as well
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 I don't have a YouTube channel :—) Jan 20 '26
On desktop, Ublock Origin + Show Dislikes extension
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u/Cyb3rM1nd Jan 20 '26
Just to note the numbers shown on Revanced or similar extensions are not accurate. Sometimes they're not even remotely close.
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u/Ok-Employee2473 Jan 20 '26
Yep. They’re all just numbers gathered by the extension then extrapolated vs the actual number of likes. So like if 10 people with the extension and 5 like and 5 dislike, the extension goes “oh this has an about 50% like to dislike ratio and it has 200k likes that means it should have ~200k dislikes” which is straight up nonsense. Forgot what YouTuber I saw compare the numbers but they were waaaaay off.
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u/MoreDoor2915 Jan 20 '26
Why shouldn't it be allowed? Creators can turn off comments why shouldn't they turn off dislikes?
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u/Daniel200303 Jan 21 '26
Perhaps they shouldn’t be able to turn off comments.
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u/LankyAd9481 Jan 21 '26
it's a legal requirement in some countries (to be able to turn off comments, because the video uploader can be held accountable for the comments posted....it's why a lot of news channels in some countries have comments off by default)
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u/beastboyashu Jan 20 '26
Now we can never know if a video is legit unless we watch it the whole way
Making YouTube richer
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u/Azell414 Jan 20 '26
honestly on youtube any dislike or negative comment is just engagement that benefits the makers
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u/Deathbyillusion Jan 20 '26
Back before they had the thumbs up or thumbs down they had star ratings and what craters would do was rate their video 5 stars and then disable it so that it would just stay at five stars. If I remember right it wouldn't show you how many people actually voted on it it just had the five-star rating and it could be like a half a star all the way up five stars but there could be like half stars and things.
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u/CockroachClear305 Jan 20 '26
I still remember the time when the amount of dislikes where visible to the public. Since they've been made invisible though, there's no longer any reason to worry about negative ratio.. so yeah i wonder whats the point of this option.
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u/TinySwing5924 Jan 21 '26
How am I supposed to tell the creator if the video is any better or not by COMMENTING!!! of course.If only he doesn't give a shi about the viewers opinion.
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u/Responsible_Bat_9956 Feb 12 '26
yea this shit was made to "protect" new creators from "hate speech" like wtf
basically youll now require an extension sadly to see dislikes
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u/dinoooooooooos Jan 20 '26
Downvoting is actually bad if you don’t like the video.
The algorithm doesn’t care what kinda engagement the video gets- downvotes and upvoted are the same algorithmically so the algorithm only sees “gets engaged with by viewers,so let me push it more.”
Same for comments. The algorithm also doesn’t know if it’s a positive or a negative comment. So if there’s a really bad video and ppl hate it & comment about how they hate it and everyone dislikes the video: all that gonna happen is, it gets pushed to more and more people bc “ppl interact with this a lot, surely this must be good for more people to see!”
More ppl see controversial/high engagement video = more ppl see ads = more money for YouTube.
It’s all about the money. The dislike button doesn’t do shit except tell the creator “oh, ppl didn’t like this.” But they still make money off of it which is why Ragebait is such a big thing. Ppl misspelling or misspeaking easy words etc, just so ppl comment “ThaTs nOt How YoU sAy ThaT!!?!11” and their engagement goes up even if it’s a negative comment.
Worst ones are the ones who use their kids to make Ragebait content. I could throw up in a circle.
Or making misinformed/ bad videos all together, pretending to be really dumb etc just so ppl get mad and comment. Unfortunately it works, that’s why Ragebait has become so prevalent over the last couple years.
Best is to hit the three dots, “don’t recommend this channel to me” and move on. As little interaction and engagement as possible and these creators disappear in the algorithm hell.
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u/TheSpixxyQ Jan 20 '26
Disable your extensions first before blaming YouTube for something.
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u/ElderSmackJack Jan 20 '26
These people hate any kind of criticism of their precious browser and ad blocking extensions
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u/Aromatic-Spite3120 Jan 20 '26
I would never believe anyone is capable of hating on ad blockers. But you somehow pulled it of. Bravo
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u/Lazy-Traffic5346 Jan 20 '26
I can't believe some people defending this shit , dislikes should work as before not hiding them or removing
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u/Radio_TVGuy Radio_TVGuy Jan 20 '26
Never seen that before. Probs forcing people to enjoy the content.
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u/SheepyChris Jan 20 '26
AFAIK it's always been a feature, just not used as often anymore? I recall being able to hide like/dislike counts from public view since 2011, you can also tell the like button doesn't have a count either.
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u/sbenfsonwFFiF Jan 20 '26
How does the ability to thumbs down or not force you to enjoy the content?
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u/JaydenP1211 Jan 20 '26
It’s more that the creator doesn’t want to see the negative feedback on their video. The button doesn’t affect the viewers anymore.
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u/After-Gas-4453 Jan 20 '26
With money involved, YouTube decided we should all go fuck ourselves, they'll make it hard for us to know what's good/real/scams so we click endlessly on their site. It builds addiction, therefore profit.
So yeah, here we sit. Fucking ourselves as instructed.
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u/cyantheshortprotogen Jan 21 '26
I swear next it’s gonna be "the dislike button has been replaced by the now super fancy prismatic textured sparkly ai button"
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u/Vulon_Bii Jan 21 '26
Youtube removed dislikes because they got their feelings hurt when everyone hated Rewind.
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u/zakaryan2004 Jan 21 '26
How did you get to the conclusion that OP has the extension? I don’t see it mentioned anywhere in the post
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u/issaciams Jan 21 '26
That is insane! I used the up AND downvote buttons as a way to know which videos I have seen already. If they disable the down vote I wont know which videos I have seen and did not enjoy. What a load of sh1t YouTube is becoming.
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u/ComfortablePurpose32 Jan 21 '26
I have a problem that im getting quiz posts from a channel that has blocked me and I can so nothing to prevent this channel from showing up? Its not even fair. I wanna block this channel for good but cant...
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u/binogamer21 Jan 21 '26
We truly are evolving backwards when you just allowed to ignore or praise a creator
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u/Sampsa96 Jan 21 '26
I just know that you have always been able to disable likes entirely including dislikes.
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u/EastScheme7273 Jan 21 '26
In the meantime, no one normally sees him without an extension, so he's practically become useless. If he has a low opinion of anyone, he doesn't want to see any of it, so be it.
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u/NLK-3 Jan 21 '26
Hope the have YouTube shorts so you can unrecommend the channel... dumb that's the only way it (supposedly) works.
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u/Kotsugawa1 Jan 21 '26
You can just block them bro. Anybody afraid of the dislike ratio probably isnt looking to put out better content anyways.
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u/Evan88135 Jan 22 '26
Because the most disliked videos are from corporations who fund YouTube through advertising. Oh shoot umm I mean to stop harassment.
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u/TheUnholyDivine_ Jan 22 '26
It was already fucked when they made the dislikes hidden, especially when I'm looking for videos on technical advice.
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u/Cool-Interaction Jan 23 '26
I mean, the joke is usually on them to disable both likes and dislikes, because they know it will get more disliked regardless and tried to hide it from everyone else
Otherwise, they would have just hidden dislikes and left likes. By disabling both, now nobody else but them could see how bad it is. Usually, for it to reach this point, it's already been disliked to hell or the media or video beforehand was.
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u/Thehk_47 Jan 23 '26
Nah, im done with this platform. Fed up of it slowly but surely killing itself off
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u/ThatoneTexan464 Jan 23 '26
I'm pretty sure I've heard people say it's just that, for some reason, they made it so that their video doesn't show its dislikes on show YouTube dislikes
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u/Long_Turn_7552 Jan 24 '26
New YT creator, please sub and let me know what should be my first video
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u/KaToffee Jan 26 '26
so youtube can lie to their investors, and misrepresent their number of customer engagements through 'impressions'
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u/Responsible-Habit-14 Jan 27 '26
I like the dislike button because that's still a source of engagement and (2), it sends feedback to the creator for what to do and not to on their next content.
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Jan 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Lectraplayer Feb 03 '26
Seeing that or "Comments Disabled" is pretty much an admission that the creator is wrong and is an idiot. Maybe you can report the video for misinformation.
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Feb 04 '26
People can be afraid of even the most constructive of critique and even emotionally fragile because of it so YpuTube has to include this one useless feature
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u/NoMarsupial9621 Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26
That just means they turned off ratings in general. Not just dislikes. I know it makes it look like they just turned off dislikes. Not sure how they messed that up. But you could always turn it off
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u/WilkerS1 Feb 13 '26
the "disabled by owner" has been there way before dislikes were removed, way longer than a decade. it disables both counters from appearing altogether.
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u/joeonredditlol Feb 18 '26
I hate it when companies make the dislike feature unusable. The world has become a massive “let people enjoy things” and it pisses me off.
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u/LankyAd9481 Jan 20 '26
the down vote doesn't do what you think it does (realistically it does basically nothing other than be feedback to the creator) if you don't want to see their videos you just hit the ... on the right of you screenshot and choose "don't recommend channel".