Restore visible YouTube dislikes with this browser extension

[enzoalec92]

Title is self-explanatory, since the communists led by Susan Wojcicki are hell-bent on appeasing their corporate paymasters (ad revenue), instead of heeding unanimous protests from the community that's made it the dominant content platform. If you think I'm exaggerating, have a read about how even one of the original founders of YouTube feels about it: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/17/22787080/youtube-dislikes-criticism-cofounder-jawed-karim-first-video-description-zoo

^ The first ever YouTube video

The extension's not perfect, but at least you'll still be able to discern which videos are worth your time, as it used to be: https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/r03rbi/ive_created_a_chrome_extension_and_an_api_for/

In case the Reddit thread gets deleted by said communists, direct links to the extension are below.

Website: https://www.returnyoutubedislike.com/
Chrome store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/return-youtube-dislike/gebbhagfogifgggkldgodflihgfeippi
Firefox store: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/return-youtube-dislikes/

You're welcome!

Edited November 24, 2021 by enzoalec92
Added Jawed Karim's video

[Voodooman]

It is funny. I thought it is more capitalist than communist since it is profit driven.

[1fast1]

That was almost exactly what I was going to post yesterday before I got sidetracked. I hate this recently trending misuse of words like Communism, "Cultural Marxism" etc., especially by right wingers who would evince outrage at being called fascists themselves. But of course, only leftists are hypocrites according to them. 😁

[enzoalec92]

15 hours ago, Voodooman said:

It is funny. I thought it is more capitalist than communist since it is profit driven.

They certainly aren't mutually exclusive though; just look at China, which is the perfect embodiment of this. Politically, they're very much still communist, what with their persistent human rights violations (Uighur camps in Xinjiang, extended "disappearances" of public figures like Jack Ma and Peng Shuai, etc.), but they had to adapt - and adopt - capitalism in order to survive. As such, they've since overtaken the USA to become the world's richest nation.

If there's anything for us all to take home, it's that economic freedom does not equate to political freedom. If anything, one can argue their wealth has led to technological advancement, which has been used to control the population even further (i.e. complete internet censorship and a social credit system). Many tend to conflate the two as being polar opposites, which just isn't the case.

2 hours ago, Turboflat4 said:

That was almost exactly what I was going to post yesterday before I got sidetracked. I hate this recently trending misuse of words like Communism, "Cultural Marxism" etc., especially by right wingers who would evince outrage at being called fascists themselves. But of course, only leftists are hypocrites according to them. 😁

@Turboflat4 There's certainly plenty of blame to go around on both sides, but fact is the majority of these "Big Tech" platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are heavily left-aligned. As such, they end up being sympathetic to a lot of the ideology, censoring out those who oppose it. The worst comes when scientifically established truths are being ignored and challenged, all in the name of furthering their agendas.

If you're wondering what all this has in relation to removing public views of dislikes on YouTube, might I suggest watching the following interviews with people who've experienced communism first-hand?

Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector currently living in Chicago, Illinois: 

Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and activist who's been subjected to numerous atrocities by the CCP: 

Both of them have stated the way the USA is moving toward is absolutely reminiscent of authoritarianism, much like the regimes they've suffered under. With the "woke" movement taking place right now, plenty of said leftists have aligned themselves with communist practices, such as equality of outcome (as opposed to equality of opportunity) and racial segregation. As mentioned above, this movement attempts to silence any dissent, which is one of the largest mechanisms for coercing people into complying with the ideology.

Citing YouTube's own reasoning for why they removed the function, they justify doing it for the mental health of their creators. However, if that were truly the case, why hide it from public view and solely keep it visible for the creator, whose morale can still be negatively impacted? Clearly, there's much more beneath the surface than what they claim...

As I replied to @Voodooman above, communism and capitalism aren't disparate concepts, as per China's example. One can cater to corporate interests to pursue profit-making while still engaging in censorship. At this point, it is well-established fact that Google's - or Alphabet's - main revenue stream comes from advertising (over 80%). However, we're also familiar with a lot of corporate videos (e.g. Gilette) that have been heavily downvoted for one reason or another. Clearly, this isn't a good look and would disincentivise them from advertising on the platform, at least for a while. The simple solution for YouTube would thus be to remove viewable dislikes, so that such content can get pushed onto people without the visible backlash that accompanies it.

Eventually, by removing viewable dislikes, the line between good and bad content becomes blurred, since people can no longer immediately tell between a useful tutorial for fixing an appliance versus one that's misleading - and potentially hazardous - just by looking at the like to dislike ratio. Since there's no longer room for criticism of "bad" videos, everything must be "good", right? Well, if we continue to progress in this direction, we could eventually end up with what's happening in North Korea, where state news is fully controlled and nothing "bad" ever happens according to Kim Jong-un's regime, despite their daily holocaust-level transgressions.

This isn't a knock against you, because I agree with you there's plenty of hypocrisy going on from the conservative side too. One such example is how they tend to focus on partisan finger-pointing and blaming, instead of providing constructive ideas to improve the worsening state of affairs. As such, my rather wordy reply was certainly not to berate you but rather to explain why I used the term "communist" in my original post. I hope this clears things up!

Edited November 25, 2021 by enzoalec92
Added citation for China being world's richest country

[Inlinefour]

I need umbrage button not dislike 😁😁😁

[Kb27]

it's funny, I can still press dislike button in youtube, although i don't understand what's that got to do with communists.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Kb27

[enzoalec92]

2 hours ago, Kb27 said:

it's funny, I can still press dislike button in youtube, although i don't understand what's that got to do with communists.

You can still click on the button, but you can no longer - or if you haven't been affected yet, will soon not be able to - see the number of people who clicked on it. Ultimately, it comes back to silencing dissent in favour of appeasing the corporations that advertise with them (YouTube, Google, Alphabet, etc.), which I've pointed out in my prior reply to @Turboflat4.

I highly recommend watching both interviews I've linked to in said prior reply, so that you can better understand the context behind it.

Edited November 25, 2021 by enzoalec92
Grammar