YouTube Co-Founder Predicts 'Decline' of the Platform Following Removal of Dislikes (theverge.com) 125
Last week, YouTube announced a controversial decision to make the "dislike" count on videos private across its platform. Not only did the move upset many Slashdotters, but it upset the third co-founder of YouTube, Jawed Karim, too. According to The Verge, Karim suggests that the move "will lead to YouTube's decline." From the report: "Why would YouTube make this universally disliked change? There is a reason, but it's not a good one, and not one that will be publicly disclosed," writes Karim. "The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Why? Because not all user-generated content is good."
Karim has been getting his own message out in an unusual way: by editing the description to the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, a banal clip titled "Me at the zoo" which stars the 25-year-old Karim himself. Karim originally edited the description of the video a few days ago to read: "When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is. Try again, YouTube [face palm emoji]." But this morning he changed this description once again to give a more detailed condemnation: "The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform," writes Karim. "Why? Because not all user-generated content is good. It can't be. In fact, most of it is not good. And that's OK. [...] The process works, and there's a name for it: the wisdom of the crowds. The process breaks when the platform interferes with it. Then, the platform invariably declines. Does YouTube want to become a place where everything is mediocre?"
In his statement today, Karim compares the video in which Matt Koval, YouTube's "creator liason," announced the removal of dislikes to infamous footage of US soldier Jeremiah Denton, who was captured during the Vietnam War. In 1966, Denton was forced to give a television interview by his captors, during which he blinked in Morse code to spell out the word "torture." You can read Karim's full statement in the description of this video.
Karim has been getting his own message out in an unusual way: by editing the description to the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, a banal clip titled "Me at the zoo" which stars the 25-year-old Karim himself. Karim originally edited the description of the video a few days ago to read: "When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is. Try again, YouTube [face palm emoji]." But this morning he changed this description once again to give a more detailed condemnation: "The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform," writes Karim. "Why? Because not all user-generated content is good. It can't be. In fact, most of it is not good. And that's OK. [...] The process works, and there's a name for it: the wisdom of the crowds. The process breaks when the platform interferes with it. Then, the platform invariably declines. Does YouTube want to become a place where everything is mediocre?"
In his statement today, Karim compares the video in which Matt Koval, YouTube's "creator liason," announced the removal of dislikes to infamous footage of US soldier Jeremiah Denton, who was captured during the Vietnam War. In 1966, Denton was forced to give a television interview by his captors, during which he blinked in Morse code to spell out the word "torture." You can read Karim's full statement in the description of this video.
The real decline (Score:2, Interesting)
I've noticed a lot of YouTubers have a backup on Odysee. However, they post things they know won't get them banned on YouTube, but post a full set of videos on Odysee. If you are following a particular channel won't you gravitate to the platform providing a full playlist?
Re:The real decline (Score:4, Insightful)
won't you gravitate to the platform providing a full playlist?
Most people will gravitate to the platform listed first in their search engine. Since Google controls the search engine results, YouTube wins.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The real decline (Score:4, Informative)
That lawsuit is about 15 years overdo. Don't hold your breath.
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That could be a pretty messy lawsuit. At this point I would bet search results are probably returned by something that looks more like a neural network than some elseifs. While Google clearly has the ability to interfere and mold the outcome, it is hard to prove they ever do this without leaked internal memos because it is not like the output can be externally verified and it is entirely possible that no single person even fully understands the code that controls the algorithm.
Re: The real decline (Score:1)
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You are going to the platform they designate as their primary platform.
That is possible, but I have never done that.
Every YouTube channel that I follow, I found by searching for a topic, finding an interesting YouTube video covering that topic, and then noticing the creator has many other good quality videos on similar topics that are also interesting to me.
Re:The real decline (Score:4, Interesting)
49 in 20 are produced garbage backed by big money trying to sell me something, and clickbait.
For example, those jackasses at TyT somehow got a sweetheart deal with youtube recommendations, and no I havent clicked on any of their videos in many many years, and back then I only clicked on a few until I learned better. I did learn at one point that the TyT jackasses got millionaire investors. Youtube Recommended.
Meanwhile I am subscribed to Jimmy Dore (I am not a big fan
Now, the majority of the stuff I am subscribed to is channels like nerdy stuff like Numberphile, Tech Ingredients, and Startalk, and gear head stuff like AvE, This Old Tony,
When its not TyT they are recommending, its CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, and a lots of obvious clickbait, and I click on none of it. Whats up with these recommendations? What is true is that it has nothing to do with what I am willing to watch. Its a 98% miss at least.
Isn't this such an easy problem that such a big miss can only be construed as intentional? They are pushing narratives and clickbait and only narratives and clickbait. Intentional. Youtube recommended.
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You are going to the platform they designate as their primary platform.
An issue is that its frequently different software to access different platforms, for example on a cell phone people use youtubes app.
Remember when Microsoft was stung hard for bundling windows media player?
The Youtube app is bundled with Android, and if the youtube app is anything, its the wet dream of what Microsoft wanted windows media player to be!
Want to see hobby videos? Youtube. Want to rent a movie? Youtube again. Want to watch or listen to just about any music video ever created? Youtube bit
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I dunno, when I want to watch a "real" move or TV show, I open up the apps for: Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu....
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Sadly many of the good channels are not on those services. There are no ad-free clients for Android TV either (SmartTubeNext for YouTube, if you were wondering).
Odysee does have a few of the creators I follow, like Adrien's Digital Basement. He has 100x as many subscribers on YouTube though, and that means most of the comments and discussion are there. Odysee's comments on his videos are a barren wasteland in comparison.
I had a look Bitchute and it seems to be 90% right-wing political videos, lots of stuff
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I'll have to give it a look.
On mobile is there an Odysee app or just access it through a browser?
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I don't know, and I can't be bothered to go look because everything on there that is of any value is also on YouTube.
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Most people will gravitate to the platform listed first in their search engine. Since Google controls the search engine results, YouTube wins.
That's like saying all users click the top result of the search without looking at the title. The reality is if you search for something specific users will click on the title they see as most relevant. But that is ultimately neither here nor there. Very few people look for a video using Google. They type Youtube in the address bar, or open the Youtube app on their phone, or open the Youtube app on the TV and then click the search button.
When people go to Google it is either:
a) they specifically don't want
Disclose it! (Score:4, Informative)
Twice in his comments and writing he says something along the lines of, "There is a reason, but it's not a good one, and not one that will be publicly disclosed"
So, disclose it! Put it out there plainly so everyone can read it and has to think about it. Enough innuendo. Since YouTube won't, people in the know who aren't happy have to.
Re:Disclose it! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason is $$$.
The dislikes make it easy to identify good content and avoid bad content. If the dislikes are hidden, viewers have to wallow through more crap to see the content they want.
This means more ad views.
I recently searched for "Jacob Blake shooting". Many of the videos with "Jacob Blake shooting" in the title don't show the shooting or have it buried behind 15 minutes of vacuous commentary and thus have many dislikes. So it was easy for me to avoid them. Without the visible dislikes, I would have had to filter through a lot more crap, generating revenue for YouTube.
Re:Disclose it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Without the visible dislikes, I would have had to filter through a lot more crap, generating revenue for YouTube.
And making it harder to find the truth under all that crap.
If you can't censor something outright you can just make it harder for people to find.
It Doesn't really (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You cant upvote or downvote the actual advertisements. You can only pray that the "skip" button appears before you rage quit.
Here is how I see this like/dislike issue.
Youtube, as an entity, benefits from both likes and dislikes, and that like and dislike bombing happens but not enough for youtube to care about its direct effects. Even if its happening to hundreds of videos a day thats just such a pisshole in the snowbank that is youtube to be a
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The dislikes make it easy to identify good content and avoid bad content. If the dislikes are hidden, viewers have to wallow through more crap to see the content they want.
While that's plausible I don't think that's the reason. Your reason would at least be honorable in the sense that it's just more money grubbing.
The real reason is their preferred content makers on YouTube don't like getting ratioed. They bitch and moan at YouTube when they post some wildly unpopular crap and earn 10:1 downvotes and the powers that be at YouTube are tired of the bitching. It's small and petty and thus aligns perfectly with the mentality that now runs all of big tech.
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The reason is $$$.
The dislikes make it easy to identify good content and avoid bad content. If the dislikes are hidden, viewers have to wallow through more crap to see the content they want.
This means more ad views.
I recently searched for "Jacob Blake shooting". Many of the videos with "Jacob Blake shooting" in the title don't show the shooting or have it buried behind 15 minutes of vacuous commentary and thus have many dislikes. So it was easy for me to avoid them. Without the visible dislikes, I would have had to filter through a lot more crap, generating revenue for YouTube.
Possible.... but that would be really poor decision making on Youtube's part.
One of the reason Youtube is so dominant is it's the place where you know you're going to find what you're looking for. Removing that feature is the one way they could be sure to start driving users to a competitor.
Re: (Score:2)
What competitor?
There is a problem here.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope. Dislikes do not indicate bad content. Dislikes only indicate petty jerks or bots visited the video, not that they watched it.
If you want to avoid watching "filler crap" on youtube, hide the channels from people who create that kind of content so the algorithm treats it as such.
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Dislikes actually help videos. You sometimes hear people in the videos telling users to like or dislike, because either way it helps them get ranked higher by the algorithm.
YouTube is all about engagement. They don't care why you watch a video, only that you watch it. If a video gets a lot of dislikes it means people watched enough of it to decide they didn't like it.
That's also why YouTube cares about bots and dislike mobs. They are screwing with YouTube's engagement metrics.
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Not necessarily. It can just mean that some influenza said "XX is mean to me" and a flood of fanboys heads over to that channel to carpet bomb dislikes.
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Nope. Dislikes do not indicate bad content. Dislikes only indicate petty jerks or bots visited the video, not that they watched it.
I think this is how Slashdot works. On YouTube, many dislikes is usually a pretty good quality indicator.
Re: (Score:2)
> Dislikes may ALSO indicate bad content.
FTFY.
One example: The Verge shitty PC Build "Guide" video. [youtube.com] It had massive downvotes due to how bad it was.
The Verge even started abusing copyright [youtube.com] to avoid criticism.
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I opened YouTube in a private browsing window and searched for "Jacob Blake shooting", and the first video in the search results was the unedited raw cell phone footage of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Perhaps you were logged in, and had not verified your age. In that case YouTube will rank videos that are not rated "over 18 only" higher in the search results, because you can actually watch them.
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That's not going to work, because if I have to wade through crap to finally see something I want to see, I could just go back to cable TV.
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"[[wildly popular company]] Co-Founder Predicts 'Decline' Following [[any recent event]]."
These are almost universally worth ignoring. The few that actually end up being right aren't any better than your average back-alley gypsy's crystal ball.
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Yep, it checks.
https://www.menshealth.com/nut... [menshealth.com]
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It works just as great for the right wing religious nutjobs, don't you worry.
Why not just say "loony fringe groups don't want to see sane people mod their crap where it belongs"?
Re: (Score:3)
Whatever one thinks about that comment, the account is one of many created to troll another Slashdot user. It's not unreasonable to flag as a troll for that reason alone.
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So, disclose it! Put it out there plainly so everyone can read it and has to think about it. Enough innuendo.
Jesus man read between the lines. Alphabet is a for profit company and needs content creators to feel comfortable enough to continue to produce their garbage.
That's not difficult. Not everything needs to be disclosed to be well and truly understood by someone reading it. If I say "then she invited me in for coffee if you know what I mean", and you reply "No, what do you mean" then I wasn't the problem in this conversation.
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Adult-Youtube (Score:2)
Alt-yutube ? :)
You probably mean "Adult-Youtube"
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Remember Gab and Parler? Once again don't hold your breath.
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YouTube is the cash cow. Its decline will be slow enough for those behind this short-term-profit-long-term-decline decision to cash out. There's the real problem of current capitalism right there: No incentive to think about the long term.
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and woke, and the market will sort them out.
Youtube generates no content. It isn't what has grown woke. Sadly for your point, it's the market which has grown woke and the people looking for woke content. Youtube's market share reflects how they are being "sorted out" given that "woke culture" is nothing new.
Re: Good. (Score:2)
YouTube censors content.
Theyâ(TM)ve censored a ton of anti-woke commentary. Gone. Poof.
Re: (Score:2)
[Citation needed]. There's a shitload of anti-woke commentary on Youtube. I'm willing to bet you the comment wasn't censored for anything "wokeness" but rather that there's a significant overlap in the Venndiagram of people who complain about wokeness, and toxic fucktards spreading nothing but bullshit, hate and abuse, the latter of which Youtube removes all the time regardless if it's pro or anti wokeness.
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Otherwise, I've got no idea how you got modded up that high
Because there's a lot of people who want to believe their ideas don't gain traction because of persecution, instead of being bad ideas. And they get mod points too.
Tapering off (Score:3)
But I haven't high hopes the course will reverse. It has been a consistent decline since they removed the customisable user pages, removed 5* ratings and integrated Google+.
I'm doubtful (Score:2, Informative)
I know the removal of dislike rubbed some people the wrong way.
Personally, I never actually looked at the number of like and dislike on any video. When you search for a video on youtube, it does tell you the number of views, but it does not tell you the like/dislike until you click on it. (I suppose it does not tell you the dislike at all anymore.)
I never cared about it, and I guess that most people don't look at it either. So saying "youtube will decline because no dislike count" seems like a "I don't like
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: I'm doubtful (Score:2)
We are going to profit seek ourselves (the US) to death. We are trying to make that sleighride downhill as fast as possible.
Well it sucks for US, the rest of the world is watching and hopefully taking notes of our follies and doing whatever they can to avoid them.
This makes zero sense (Score:1, Troll)
I use the service, have tons of friends who do, and none of us even use the dislike button.
Maybe he hangs out with nutters and extremists that were radicalized by TFG?
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No, Disney is perfectly fine. I should know, my ex-wife works for them, and my niece used to.
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Tesla is a socialist company, they relied on government funding and tax beneifits.
Unlike you, I bought Apple back on Black Monday and sold some shares to get my house, whereas on of my brunch friends got his shares working for them.
Sorry you don't like capitalism, but that's the way things work.
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Unlike you, I actually took two years of economics courses during my Business Management degree, but whatever, Mercantalist Communist ...
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You would lose that bet. Also, we all know the Earth revolves around the Moon, not the Sun around the Earth, so stop with your conspiracy videos, they're unrealistic.
P.S.: Moonfall is about realizing the Moon is a dragon egg. There, spoiled it for you.
I never even notice it (Score:2)
It's pretty easy to differentiate good content from bad, if not from just looking at how it presents itself, then certainly from the first 10 seconds of playback. If the channel has a few bad videos, then it's a channel that doesn't interest me and I'll probably ignore it from that point forward. I never even notice the dislikes.
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Dislike is appropriate, and communicating my dislike with the world, also appropriate.
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Take a look at the comments.
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Except to get to those 10 seconds of playback, you first have to watch 20 seconds of ads.
Which is why YouTube is doing this.
Floatplane (Score:2)
So is it time to go to floatplane?
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I Finally have a Voice! (Score:2)
Now I have a voice. A louder voice. Because now not only do I need to post "DISLIKE" under comments I disagree with, I also have to post it under the videos.
Drama (Score:3)
Because today YouTube is the quintessence of quality content; and it's only thanks to the fact that nutters can deface videos that tell things they don't want to hear.
"Me at the zoo", for instance, I'd put it near Citizen Kane.
More bulls**t from... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:2)
No, dislikes allowed people to infer a video wasn't very good, and thus they wouldn't click on it.
If they don't click on it, YouTube can't show ads before the video.
Also, it means clicking on more videos until you can find a good one on the subject you're interested in. Which means more pre-video ads.
As usual, making the UX worse is about money.
Wow did you know that... (Score:3)
The removal of the dislike button on YouTube is because of the extreme left or the extreme right?
It's true, just check every other comment here on Slashdot to prove it.
Make sure to avoid all discussing any pros/cons of removing the dislike button and instead focus on which side is fascist instead.
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Personally I think this could make YouTube better. The problem is that the dislike button is too vague and when people click on it there are too many different meanings.
For example, sometimes people dislike videos that are actually good just because they don't want to be bombarded with suggestions for similar videos. Yes there is incognito mode, but on Android and TV interfaces it's too much effort to bother with.
There is also the problem of mobs who don't actually watch the videos but just dislike them. It
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The removal of the dislike button on YouTube is because of the extreme left or the extreme right?
Of course. Centralists aren't the ones who try to stifle discussions.
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The trolls come in all types; left, right, up, down, smart and stupid.
THIS is the concern? (Score:2)
Not the rampant demonetization, repeated strikes for no reason, poor support, bad DMCA takedowns, excessive, repetitive ads, poor moderation standards, the tendency to keep putting radical crap in my feed that I've repeatedly blocked, abusive behavior towards creators....
But the removal of dislikes... that's what will drive people away.
Right.
Youtube needs to decline (Score:4, Interesting)
Some things need to die. It's time to move on to a decentralized platform, with no State control or political bias.
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Good luck with that. I give it precisely 3 hours before it becomes nothing more than another 4chan but with video.
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It will end up like voat.co in no time.
decline (Score:1)
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No, dislikes allowed people to infer a video wasn't very good, and thus they wouldn't click on it.
If they don't click on it, YouTube can't show ads before the video.
Also, it means clicking on more videos until you can find a good one on the subject you're interested in. Which means more pre-video ads.
As usual, making the UX worse is about money.
No alternative (Score:2)
Definitely a bad idea (Score:2)
As a semi-aside Netflix used to let viewers rate content a
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If it's less than 60% then there is something seriously wrong with this video.
Or it's good, but it pisses off someone unethical who buys thousands of dislikes to push it down in the rankings (happened to EEVBlog several times when he took on the right scammers)
That's my not quite a conspiracy theory: YouTube has some internal metrics that show a majority of likes are genuine but a majority of dislikes are coming from bots and click farms, and they chose the lowest-effort possible way to deal with it. Who cares if it annoys viewers and creators? We're Google and they're not.
In real life, insults donâ(TM)t work either (Score:1)
Bigger problems (Score:2)
YouTube has far bigger problems
- Constant obvious scam adverts
- Too often recommending videos I've already seen
- Too many clickbait videos that are not what title says
- Too many deliberate disinformation videos
- Too many scammer commenter
- Too many abuse commenter
I've said it before, I say it again (Score:2)
The only thing that could keep YouTube from simply grasping hegemony over user created content and its delivery on the internet is YouTube itself.
And so far, it seems they're hellbent on succeeding in this endeavor.
"The wisdom of the crowds" (Score:2)
Oh really? The last time I checked, mob mentality usually equated to lemmings jumping off cliffs. The most recent example that is still fresh in most people's minds is Jan 6 and then the subsequent remorse by individuals who participated. Most simply got caught up in the moment and the rhetoric. Mob mentality is a real phenomenon but the behavior doesn't excuse criminal actions. It does show that crowds lack wisdom though.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
At least you realize I'm a capitalist, even if you aren't.
Hint: there are seven pamphlets by Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, not one. Try reading them and eschewing your Mercantilist Communist views that prop up billionaires who will never invite you to their parties (most aren't that fun, actually, so you're not missing a lot).
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OK, dear.
I'll be at their parties in Santa Barbara while you pine away.
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Probably won't see him before my dad's 90th birthday next year, but I'll say hi to him then.
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This is what the Progressive left wants.
If anything, this is what the regressive right wants.
They do not diversity of thought or opinion. They do not dissent.
Um, yeah. About that. Haven't been paying attention to what Republicans have been doing of late, have you? They literally turned their backs on Liz Cheney because she did her constitutional duty to hold the con artist accountable for his crimes. And Republicans now say they don't recognize her [thehill.com].
They are literal fascists and most slashdotters claim to
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Yeah, not like republicans want to have a good old fashioned book burning. Oh wait... https://www.nbcwashington.com/... [nbcwashington.com]
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Here you go, an *actual* book burning. B-but it was for a good cause! [ctvnews.ca]
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It didn't happen because the teachers made a huge deal and the media picked it up. The original parent is still complaining about the "woke mob" cancelling her n@zi style book burning.
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This is what the Progressive left wants.
If anything, this is what the regressive right wants.
Let's just keep things simple and say this is what assholes want. There's assholes though the whole spectrum, including moderates.
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Democrats love silencing dissent.
-1 Troll
Nuh uh. Republicans do.
+3 Genius Insightful Informative
Way to prove the point, Slashdot.
Re: (Score:3)
Democrats love silencing dissent.
-1 Troll
Nuh uh. Republicans do.
+3 Genius Insightful Informative
Way to prove the point, Slashdot.
Agreed. The Left wants to shut up the Right while the Right wants the Left to keep talking.
The theory I heard was that YouTube leadership didn't like seeing that videos featuring President Biden were getting so many dislikes so apparently they thought by removing the ability to dislike the President on YouTube that people would like him more. Or something.
YouTube has been trying to silence politically right leaning content for a very long time. They've been removing advertising revenue, giving "content s
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The theory I heard was that YouTube leadership didn't like seeing that videos featuring President Biden were getting so many dislikes so apparently they thought by removing the ability to dislike the President on YouTube that people would like him more. Or something.
Well if you remove all the ways people can collectively communicate an opinion, its a lot easier to pretend that their opinion isnt widespread.
If they arent removing it for this reason, its still a good reason to now be concerned, yes?
The like/dislike counts are a crowdsourced fuzzy bit of knowledge the people of the world share, in near real-time, except sometimes the state of this particular fuzzy bit seems to be considered too problematic to let any of it continue.
Re: Why so upset? (Score:2)