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YouTube Struggles To Fight Mobs Weaponizing Their 'Dislike' Button (theverge.com)

"YouTube is no stranger to viewers weaponizing the dislike button, as seen by the company's recent Rewind video, but the product development team is working on a way to tackle the issue," writes the Verge.

Suren Enfiajyan shares their report on a new video by Tom Leung, YouTube's director of project management. "Dislike mobs" are the YouTube equivalent to review bombings on Steam -- a group of people who are upset with a certain creator or game decide to execute an organized attack and downvote or negatively review a game or video into oblivion. It's an issue on YouTube as well, and one that creators have spoken out against many times in the past.... Now, the company is planning to experiment with new ways to make it more difficult for organized attacks to be executed. Leung states that these are just "lightly being discussed" right now, and if none of the options are the correct approach, they may hold off until a better idea comes along.
Ironically, Leung's video itself drew 2,654 "dislike" votes -- nearly double its 1,377 upvotes.

3 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. What about the other way by peragrin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What about mobs weaponizing the like button to generate fake data?

    Notice how Facebook and you tube never talk about fake impressions when it appears positive?

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    1. Re:What about the other way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There's a clear connection to 1984 here.

      You aren't allowed to be negative. That godawful corporate dross video isn't crap... it's ++ungood.

  2. Anything to distract from the true problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Likes/Dislikes are dross; if you don't want to see how bad your content is, disable the ratings.
    Comments are dross; if you don't want to see what people think about your content, disable the comments.

    The truly weaponized button is the report button. False flagging campaigns to get content age restricted, put in limited state, or removed altogether have been around since before likes and comment were a glimmer in the trolls' eyes. Now it has been weaponized to get entire content creators removed from platforms. And coming to a platform near you, we are beginning to see content creators being unpersoned not just from a platform, but from life in general; now the mobs take away your ability to make a living outside the platform (or even more recently your access to the monetary system). While I hate to say this, it will take government intervention to undo the unpersoning we see these days.

    If you can't handle likes, dislikes and comments grow a thicker skin or get off the platform. If you can't handle someone else's content to the point of trying to get them kicked off the platform, maybe it's you that really needs to go. If you can't handle someone else's content to the point of trying to get them unpersoned, it's prison time for you.

    I remember an old George Carlin bit about someone complaining about content they didn't like on the radio and trying to get it banned. George pointed out that radios have two buttons, one button changes the station -- and the other TURNS IT OFF. Ah the wisdom we now ignore ;(.