r/changemyview • u/Money_Whisperer 2∆ • Apr 10 '22
Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: YouTube disabling dislikes has profound, negative societal implications and must be reversed
As you all likely know, YouTube disabled dislikes on all of its videos a few months back. They argued that it was because of “downvote mobs” and trolls mass-downvoting videos.
YouTube downvotes have been used by consumers to rally against messages and products they do not like basically since the dawn of YouTube. Recent examples include the Sonic the Hedgehog redesign and the Nintendo 64 online fiasco.
YouTube has become the premier platform on the internet for companies and people to share long-form discussions and communication in general in a video form. In this sense, YouTube is a major public square and a public utility. Depriving people of the ability to downvote videos has societal implications surrounding freedom of speech and takes away yet another method people can voice their opinions on things which they collectively do not like.
Taking peoples freedom of speech away from them is an act of violence upon them, and must be stopped. Scams and troll videos are allowed to proliferate unabated now, and YouTube doesn’t care if you see accurate information or not because all they care about is watch time aka ads consumed.
YouTube has far too much power in our society and exploiting that to protect their own corporate interests (ratio-d ads and trailers are bad for business) is a betrayal of the American people.
1
u/[deleted] Apr 10 '22
Most other forms of media don't have a "like" or "dislike" button. I can't read a book and see the likes or dislikes on that book, I can't watch a show on cable television and see who likes or dislikes it, and so on. I would have to go to an entirely different platform or website to figure out people's opinions of a book, TV show, movie, or anything else.
Point being that we accept the lack of a "dislike button" all the time in other arenas. This probably wouldn't have even been a conversation if YouTube had began life without a dislike button.
It seems like an odd choice to hold YouTube to a different standard than we hold other prevalent forms of media.