YouTube’s ‘Dislike’ Button , Doesn’t Really Work, New Study Says.
Engadget reports that Mozilla recently looked into the effectiveness of YouTube's "dislike" button. .
Engadget reports that Mozilla recently looked into the effectiveness of YouTube's "dislike" button. .
Mozilla also tested the "not interested," "don't recommend channel" and
"remove from watch history" buttons.
The report found that these buttons
"prevent less than half of unwanted algorithmic recommendations.".
Their overall impact was determined
to be "small and inadequate.".
The "don't recommend channel"
button was most effective at 43%.
"Not interested" and "dislike" buttons
worked 11% and 12%, respectively.
"Remove from watch history"
was effective 29% of the time.
The way that YouTube and a lot of platforms operate is they rely a lot of passive data collection in order to infer what your preferences are, Becca Ricks, a senior researcher at Mozilla, report co-author, via Engadget.
But it's a little bit of a paternalistic way to operate where you're kind of making choices on behalf of people. You could be asking people what they want to be doing on the platform versus just watching what they're doing, Becca Ricks, a senior researcher at Mozilla, report co-author, via Engadget.
Mozilla's findings come as calls increase for algorithm transparency of major platforms