/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus image/jawedkarimatthe_zoo.
Jawed Karim edited the description to make his opinion known.
The image is on YouTube.
Jawed Karim, the third co-founder of YouTube, believes that the removal of public dislike counts on videos will lead to the company's decline.
Why would this change be universally disliked? There is a reason, but it isn't a good one and won't be publicly disclosed. The ability to quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Why? Not all user-generated content is good.
The change to the user interface was made last week in order to counter harassment and promote respectful interactions between viewers and creators. Many users and creators have criticized the decision, arguing that dislike counts give the community a way to express its preferences as well as quickly identify misleading and spam videos promoted by YouTube's own algorithm.
Is YouTube going to become a place where everything is mediocre?
A banal clip titled "Me at the zoo" which stars the 25-year-old Karim himself, was edited into the first video ever uploaded to YouTube. The description of the video was edited a few days ago to say that removing dislikes is a stupid idea. Try again. He changed this description again this morning.
The ability to easily and quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Why? Some user-generated content is not good. It can't be. Most of it isn't good. The process works, and there is a name for it: the wisdom of the crowds. The process stops when the platform messes with it. The platform always declines. Is YouTube going to become a place where everything is mediocre?
The video "Me at the zoo" has been used as an informal billboard for his opinions before. When it was announced that the video would be powered by comments on the site, the description was changed to read, "Why the fuck do I need a google+ account to watch this video?"
In his statement today, he compares the video in which Matt Koval announced the removal of dislikes to the video in which US soldier Jeremiah Denton was captured during the Vietnam War. In 1966, when he was forced to give a television interview by his abductors, he blinked in a code to spell out the word torture.
You can read the full update below.
The words didn't match the eyes. The video reminded me of a 1966 interview with the admiral. I've never seen an announcement of something that is supposed to be great more enthusiastic.
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It is not possible to call the removal of dislikes a good thing for creators without conflict. We know this because there is no one who thinks removing dislikes is a good idea.
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Why would this change be universally disliked? There is a reason, but it is not a good one and will not be made public. There will be references to other studies. The studies seem to disagree with the common sense of every YouTuber.
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The ability to quickly identify bad content is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Why? Some user-generated content is not good. It can't be. Most of it isn't good. And that is fine. The idea was not that all content is good. There are great creations waiting to be exposed among the flood of content. The stuff that is not great has to fall quickly.
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The process works, and there is a name for it: the wisdom of the crowds. The process stops when the platform messes with it. The platform always declines. Is YouTube going to become a place where everything is mediocre? If nothing is good, it can be great.
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In business, the most important thing is "Make it better". That is "Don't fuck it up".
