© Unknown/YouTubeUS President Joe Biden
As President Biden's White House YouTube channel continues to see videos' "dislikes" massively trump "likes,"
the video platform announced it is testing a new design that obscures a public dislike count.The move was announced via Twitter on March 30th, with YouTube explaining "in response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count." As a result,
only the accounts publishing videos will be able to see the dislike to like ratio.
© YouTubeYouTube Announcement
The announcement follows National Pulse reports highlighting how the White House's official YouTube channel is seeing its likes get dwarfed by dislikes.
At the time of publishing, the
video "Five Ways The American Rescue Plan Will Help You"
has over eight times as many dislikes as it does likes.
Comment: YouTube is in the business of 'perception management' - something they only negatively did for Trump:
Amid the online freakout, some commenters suggested that President Joe Biden might be happy to see dislikes disappear from YouTube. Since Biden took office in January, every single video posted by the White House has gotten more dislikes than likes. Oftentimes, videos of Biden speaking earn more than ten times as many thumbs down as thumbs up.
It is, of course, unclear if Biden's social media team provided the "creator feedback" that YouTube cited as reason for hiding dislikes. A significant number of dislikes on Biden's videos may come from disaffected Trump voters, but Trump himself never saw a like-dislike ratio quite like Biden's, despite the level of public opposition to his presidency.
Checking Trump's videos is now impossible, however. The former president was banned from YouTube in January.
Comment: YouTube is in the business of 'perception management' - something they only negatively did for Trump: