as the post itself points out this has nothing to do with dissident voices but with preventing dislike attacks and 'ratio-ing' as is common on websites that have these mechanisms in place. Downvote bombing content if anything distorts discourse and makes it harder to figure out what people actually think. There's a reason this very website caps downvotes at -4.
What I find cringeworthy is this keyboard warrior mentality of likening an incentive change on YouTube videos to dissident activity, as if downvoting some cat video on the internet is like publishing Samizdat in the underground of the Soviet Union, maybe pipe down a little bit
like downvoting a cat video is the only type of video being downvoted. If a "tutorial" is bad, people can downvote it. If the next view sees lots of downs, they can avoid it and go to the video saving them time, and no longer rewarding with ad share for a worthless video.
>If the next view sees lots of downs, they can avoid it
the exact point is that this is terrible because the downvotes aren't representative of anything. two examples. Go to Youtube right now, pick a 5 minute daily covid update. I'm not talking about op-eds, just factual reporting about the stats. Chances are it has been downvoted 80% because there's a bunch of crazies on that site downvoting every news video.
another example, Thandiwe Newton years ago made some political comments 4chan didn't like, so they started to bombard every westworld video with her in it. I saw those ratios and decided to not watch the show for months. Turns out is actually great and it was just some right-wing internet mob being angry about her.
Nobody ever downvotes shitty tutorials, because the only people who passionately downvote youtube videos are crazy. I can't tell you how many crappy tutorials with wrong info in it i've seen, entirely upvoted.
>the exact point is that this is terrible because the downvotes aren't representative of anything.
The video owner can disable comments. Why not allow them the decision on showing/hiding this data? Clearly, there are people that are in favor and some that are against. Allow the "publisher" to make the decision. Seems like a decent compromise.
> this is terrible because the downvotes aren't representative of anything
Speak for yourself?
I watch football highlights on YouTube. Due to copyright many videos are just clickbaits with perhaps a few seconds of real footage, or are missing games or whatever. The up/downvotes are a reliable measure in that niche.
Oh I could not give a dead flying flamingo about likes and dislikes on YT.
It's the intent behind all this that I find repulsive. As someone justly mentioned above, this all comes down to uninterrupted flow of content towards (less) able to resists psyches.
What I find cringeworthy is this keyboard warrior mentality of likening an incentive change on YouTube videos to dissident activity, as if downvoting some cat video on the internet is like publishing Samizdat in the underground of the Soviet Union, maybe pipe down a little bit