© The White House/YouTube
I've seen screenshots of YouTube modifying dislikes of White House videos. I decided I would do a thorough analysis myself. I wrote a script to check video stats every 80 seconds for 24 hours - for
all videos on White House's YouTube channel.
The collected data is archived
here and
here. The format is
space-separated "CSV", as follows:
© Zoe Phin
Here is a sample of the most egregious manipulation:
01/26/21: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice:© Zoe Phin
President Biden Delivers Remarks Outlining his Racial Equity Agenda and Signs Executive Actions:© Zoe Phin
Vice President Harris will Ceremonially Swear in Dr. Janet Yellen as Secretary of the Treasury:
© Zoe Phin
President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Fight to Contain the COVID-19 Pandemic:
© Zoe Phin
Vice President Harris and the Second Gentleman Receive the Second Dose of the COVID-19 Vaccine:
© Zoe Phin
Some videos were
delisted in minutes!:
© Zoe PhinA partial sample of videos delisted by the White House YouTube channel
Likes+Dislikes was greater than views in some cases. Although that seems impossible,
Youtube updates views slower, so they do not reflect real views at the time. For example:
© Zoe PhinLikes vs dislikes on White House YouTube channel videos
So it's possible for likes and dislikes to accumulate while views stays the same. Eventually, views jumps up to better reflect reality.
The record of every time dislikes were removed is archived at
Pastebin.
© Zoe Phin
130 Thousand dislikes were removed in a 24hr period!And this is for the most popular US President of all time!
Enjoy โ Zoe
* * * * * *
UpdateThe timezone for the charts is UTC (London). Did you notice the huge drop at 06 hour (1 AM US Eastern)? Most working people go to sleep by that time. Coincidence? I think not.
UpdateThis research was featured in a youtube
video by Near Death Experiment. The quality is excellent. Unfortunately I did not track it in time to watch youtube remove the million likes it got!
Comment: Zoe has gracious posted her code
here (scroll to bottom), for anyone who wants to continue her research.
Comment: Zoe has gracious posted her code here (scroll to bottom), for anyone who wants to continue her research.