YouTube - Testing new designs for the like and dislike buttons

We’ll be experimenting, with a small group of users, a few potential designs for the like and dislike buttons that appear below YouTube videos.

Viewer feedback has always been, and will continue to be, an important part of YouTube. But we've heard from creators that the public dislike counts can impact their wellbeing, and may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video. So, we're testing designs that don’t include the visible like or dislike count in an effort to balance improving the creator experience, while still making sure viewer feedback is accounted for and shared with the creator.
One of the potential designs for the dislike button that doesn’t include a visible dislike count.

Creators, you'll still be able to see the exact number of likes and dislikes in YouTube Studio. For viewers, if you're in the experiment, you can still like or dislike a video to share feedback with creators and help tune the recommendations you see on YouTube.

We know you may have some questions about how this is going to work, so here’s some more info: FAQs:

If I’m in this experiment, can I opt out?
Currently, there's no way to opt out of this experiment. If you have feedback about the new designs, you can share your thoughts in the replies on this post or through the steps here. We’ll be monitoring feedback closely to help us determine if, when, and how to release designs like this more broadly.

Are you removing the dislike button?
No, we’re just experimenting with a few designs that don’t show the dislike counts. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the feedback from these experiments to determine what decisions we may want to make in the future.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments in the replies below. We’ll be monitoring all of your feedback closely as we start to test these new designs.

Jensen (TeamYouTube) 👉 via