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I mean, those on youtube, some forums, and other places.

I never liked them but I think I just figured out more specifically why. Aside from being lazy, I think they are actually rude. Imagine, someone puts an effort into something, and all he gets is a "like". Or alternatively, he gets mass disliked but doesn't know why. And suddenly, the expectation is that you don't have to actually connect with the people whose content you are engaging with - just like or dislike and move on to another piece of content. Likes and dislikes basically encourage apathy.

On the side of the creator, he might be compelled continue a path that doesn't actually fit him because he receives the big number from it. If people followed exclusively likes or dislikes, no unconventional ideas would ever appear.

Reddit downvotes are even worse since they hide the relevant post, pretty much enforcing an echo chamber anywhere they are used. That's why some subreddits chose to not display the downvotes, I guess.

And this definitely applies. I mean, people buy fake views and likes and even comments on their youtube videos for a reason. Big view or like number -> people assume this is good content and engage with it -> the views and likes snowball. But the soul of the content gets consumed at the same time.

It feels like humans are not designed for this. It feels like a hack on brains.

Anyway, how do you think an internet without likes or dislikes would look? Would you like it?

likes and dislikes are useful for things like tech support and programming sites where the only criterion for voting is the helpfulness of the post (e.g. in my experience highly voted stackoverflow answers tend to work while highly downvoted ones tend to be utter garbage)

they're completely disastrous for any kind of political discussion because they create echo chambers and are easily botted. botting is a massive problem because that's how they create the illusion of social consensus when there isn't any. interestingly, dislikes don't seem to matter as much because systems where only likes exist (e.g. twitter) produce the exact same issues.

a lot of people are buying likes on their own but i also think a lot of accounts are being pushed with artificial likes (remember when it turned out that the place with most reddit traffic was a US air force base?) in order to push meaningless idpol debates onto the masses and divert their attention from what really matters

I don't think they are big deal if it doesn't censor or leads to shadow ban like reddit does. Some forums have them like reactions or something like that. The github ones are pretty decent. Sometimes when i use a site like that, and someone replies to me and i have nothing to say i give them a like, meaning i am acknowledging what they wrote and that i read them.

Though one has to admit some people just look at the highest upvoted comments especially on reddit and ignore the rest.

I don't mind having likes and dislikes in a way that doesn't affect what content shows up or censors mass downvoted comments. Giving users the option to favorite videos and posts alongside upvoting and downvoting could be rewarding, at least the way I've seen it done before where many videos and posts get liked but only few get starred, to distinguish the good from the bad, and from the best, but again, without affecting the algorithms. If people only look at the highest upvoted comments on Reddit or the most popular videos on YouTube and ignore everything else, then either likes/dislikes are a problem or those people are the problem. This shouldn't be at the expense of every other good comment, post, video, or anything else on the internet.

But still it depends on the type of content. For YouTube, I wish they'd bring back dislikes or even the old 5-star rating system, but YT is too far gone at this point. This goes for any other video site as well because videos require actual effort. As qualia pointed out they're useful for tech support sites but disastrous for political discussion.

But then again, can people these days tolerate even a single dislike let alone many of them?

And I agree that simply liking something can be lazy. If people really like something they might as well share it with others or leave a comment about how great it is.

I recall back before youtube disabled the dislike button, whenever I see a video about a rare problem, say how to fix a smart phone, I would instantly get out of a video that has so many dislikes without even watching it, because it hints the solution doesn't work.

Youtube removed the dislike button is obviously for political reasons, when you know other's dislike a policy, say by watching a video about Joe Biden, and you see like a million dislike, you know you aren't alone in disliking his policies, but when dislikes and comments are disabled, and only likes show, this creates the doubt and FEAR that you are alone in fighting what you consider a bad policy.

This isn't limited to Youtube, showing a disagreement for anything that doesn't fit a certain controllers agenda, even if your critisizm is objective.

For example, Psychiatrist Robert L Spitzer, wrote a paper [1] simply show casing that gays or lesbians, using reparative therapy, could change their sexual orintation, this is undirect critisizim of the now wide spread narattive that sexual orintation is fixed.

Spitzer here acted like the dislike button, he showed that you who stand against LGBT agendas, aren't alone in thinking they are massive agenda to profit from selling pharmaceuticals, that's why he needed to be censored, that's what gaints like PAHO and WHO did to him [2].

Like button could just do the same effect, when something is liked by so many and no view of dislikes, like youtube is doing, you would believe you are alone in disliking, discouraging you in the fight.


In summory: Likes and Dislikes are information, and taking them away, is just yet another step in WAR against information.

Bonus: Youtube remove the sort by recent videos option from search filter, I, during Iran/Zionist war, struggled to get latest news thanks to this movement, another step in the WAR against information.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1025647527010

[2] https://www.paho.org/en/news/17-5-2012- ... ten-health