It was an unprecedented showing of cross-corporate concern. The changes to the dislike count will roll out globally across YouTubeвЂ™s platform starting today, including all devices and the web.Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photo by The Late Late Show with James Corden/YouTubeДЄll the various Jimmys and Daily Show expats of late night came together this week to address the climate crisis. And, over the past year or so, itвЂ™s introduced several new features and policies aimed at improving the creator experience. YouTube this year announced a $100 million creator fund to jumpstart its short-form video platform, for example. TodayвЂ™s social platforms are establishing funds to retain their top creators amid increased competition, particularly from the growing threat of TikTok. The company, of course, is also rolling this out when the battle for creator talent is becoming hugely competitive among tech giants. вЂњWe are proactively making this change because YouTube has a responsibility to protect creators, especially smaller creators, from harassment and dislike attacks,вЂќ a spokesperson said. That said, YouTube told TechCrunch todayвЂ™s removal of the dislike count is not being guided by any regulatory changes, but rather its support for creators. But the larger shift in the market is also pushing companies to consider the other areas of their platforms that are potentially toxic to broad groups of people. In YouTubeвЂ™s case, the company has attempted to get ahead of some of the required changes by implementing increased protections and privacy features for users ages 13 to 17 while also decreasing the monetization potential for вЂњunhealthyвЂќ kidsвЂ™ content. Mental health is only one area of regulatory interest, though, along with ad targeting, privacy, algorithmic boosting of misinformation and more. In a number of markets, lawmakers have been dragging in tech execs to hearings - YouTube included - and are crafting legislation aimed at reigning in some of techвЂ™s more problematic elements. Companies have been rethinking how their systems are designed to target and influence their user base, as well as what sort of changes they can make ahead of coming regulations. YouTubeвЂ™s changes to the вЂњdislikeвЂќ count are being introduced at a time when thereвЂ™s been a public reckoning over big tech and its impact on mental health, particularly when it comes to minors. Ultimately, though, neither Facebook nor Instagram could fully commit to a decision and instead put the power to hide Likes back under usersвЂ™ control - a move that effectively kept the status quo intact. It believed the focus on achieving Likes could be detrimental to its community and may make creators less comfortable expressing themselves on the platform. For similar mental health-related reasons, Instagram a couple of years ago began tests to hide its Like counts globally. The company would not be the first major platform to experiment with the idea of reducing the public visibility of signals that convey user sentiment. This is the design the company has now settled on, which is less of a disruptive change to the row of engagement buttons beneath a video. The company had experimented with different designs for removing the dislike counts, including one where the word вЂњDislikeвЂќ appeared underneath the thumbs down button instead of the number of dislikes.

But it said it ran its tests for вЂњmultiple monthsвЂќ and conducted вЂњin-depth analysis of the impactвЂќ as to how the changes affected both users and creators alike. YouTube declined to share the specific details or the data collected through those experiments when TechCrunch asked, however. The experiment confirmed this was true - creators with smaller channels were targeted with dislike attacks more than larger creators were.

YouTube said it had also heard from smaller creators and others who were just getting started on the platform that they felt they were being unfairly targeted by dislike attacks.

While thatвЂ™s true, dislikes can also serve as a signal to others when videos are clickbait, spam or misleading, which can be useful.

At the time, YouTube explained that public dislike counts can affect creatorsвЂ™ well-being and may motivate targeted campaigns to add dislikes to videos.

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