When YouTube announced it would hide the number of dislikes on videos last week, many users disagreed with the change. One of the people who criticized him was the co-founder of YouTube himself, Jawed Karim.
Karim founded YouTube with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen in 2005. The name may not be familiar, but YouTube users must have seen his video entitled 'Me at the zoo'.
The 18-second video is the first video uploaded to YouTube. The video showing Karim talking about the elephant has now been viewed more than 200 million times.
Karim then used this video to voice his criticism of YouTube's new policies. He changed the description of the video with his latest comment which was quite long.
"Why did YouTube make this universally unwelcome change? There's a reason, but it's not a good reason, and not a reason that will be made public," Karim wrote in his video description column, as quoted from The Verge, Thursday (18/11). /2021).
"The ability to identify bad content easily and quickly is an essential feature of a user-generated content platform. Why? Because not all user-generated content is good," he continued.
In its announcement, YouTube said the dislike count will be hidden to protect novice creators from 'dislike attacks' and other forms of harassment, and to promote good interaction between creators and viewers.
Creators can still see the number of dislikes received privately through YouTube Studio. But according to many users and creators, this change will actually be difficult because there are no more indicators that can indicate video quality, such as spam and clickbait videos that are often recommended by the YouTube algorithm.
In his description, Karim also warned of the possible decline in the quality of YouTube as a result of the decision.
"Does YouTube want to be a place where everything is mediocre? Because nothing can be great without ugliness," he said.
This is not the first time Karim has used the 'Me at the zoo' video as a place to criticize YouTube's policies. In 2013, when YouTube announced that users had to use a Google+ account to leave comments on videos, Karim also changed the description of the video.
"Why do I need a google+ account to comment on videos?" Karim wrote at the time.
