YouTube says it isn’t testing hiding the dislike button

YouTube says it is not testing hiding the dislike button from regular viewers, clarifying that a change to the control’s placement applies to creators looking at their own uploads. A spokesperson confirmed the distinction in a statement to The Verge on Wednesday, responding to reports suggesting a broader change.

The creator-facing interface moves the dislike button behind the three-dot menu on a creator’s own video. According to YouTube’s explanation, that layout should not be interpreted as a test of moving the button out of sight for people watching other creators’ videos.

“We are not testing hiding the dislike button on YouTube for users,” the spokesperson told The Verge. The clarification draws a boundary around the change: it concerns how creators see their own uploads, rather than a general redesign of the viewer-facing dislike control.

YouTube also told 9to5Google that creators can continue to find their full dislike counts in YouTube Studio alongside other analytics. That means the interface update changes where a control appears in the creator’s viewing experience, without removing access to the feedback totals available through Studio.

The distinction matters because a button’s location, the ability to submit feedback and the visibility of feedback totals are separate issues. A menu-based control can look absent at first glance, but its relocation does not by itself establish that viewers have lost the ability to register a dislike.

The latest clarification follows a much older change to the visibility of dislikes. In November 2021, YouTube announced that it would make public dislike counts private while retaining the dislike button, separating viewers’ ability to leave negative feedback from their ability to see its aggregate total.

In its announcement at the time, YouTube said experiments with hiding the totals had reduced coordinated efforts to drive up dislikes on individual videos. The company also said smaller channels were disproportionately affected by that behavior, framing the decision as a measure to protect creators from harassment.

YouTube acknowledged then that some viewers used public dislike totals to decide whether a video was worth watching. Its stated approach preserved exact counts for creators in Studio while allowing viewers to submit private feedback, rather than displaying a public tally beneath the video.

That history helps explain why the scope of the current interface change is important. Making a count private is different from moving a button, and a layout shown to an uploader is not necessarily the layout shown to that uploader’s audience. YouTube’s response specifically rejects the broader interpretation of the creator-facing change.

For now, the company describes the update as a new interface for creators on their own uploaded videos, not a viewer-wide experiment. Its statement does not set out a timetable for completing that introduction or announce a subsequent change to the regular viewer interface.