YouTube Deleted 2.5 Million 'Dislikes' From Biden White House Videos, Data Indicates
YouTube Deleted 2.5 Million 'Dislikes' From Biden White House Videos, Data Indicates
BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, APR 03, 2021 - 12:30 PM Authored by Peter Svab via The Epoch Times,
YouTube has deleted about 2.5 million
‘dislikes’ from videos on the official White House channel of President Joe Biden, according
to data collected and posted online by a researcher who wished to remain
anonymous. YouTube recently announced that it’s testing a new page design that
hides the dislike count.
The Google-owned
video platform allows users to give videos either a thumb up (like) or thumb
down (dislike). For at least two years, it’s had a policy to remove likes and
dislikes it considers spam.
“We have
policies and systems in place to ensure that the engagement on YouTube is
authentic, and remove any fraudulent metrics,” a YouTube
spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email, but when asked, wouldn’t go into
details on what criteria it uses to make these calls.
The White House videos have seen these kinds of interventions on
an ongoing basis, but it appears it’s only the dislikes that are disappearing.
The
channel has posted more than 300 videos that have garnered nearly 3.7 million
dislikes of which nearly 2.5 million were removed, according
to data posted on the website 81m.org. The author of the website started to
track the engagement on January 26 and has published all the data as well as
the methodology used to collect it, but wouldn’t comment on his or her identity
when asked via email.
YouTube
is deleting close to 8,000 dislikes per video on average. Not
a single like was removed, the data indicates.
Even after the interventions, the videos have nearly six times
more dislikes than likes on average, the data shows. Without intervention the
ratio would be over 17 dislikes for every like.
Posts on social media indicate that some supporters of former
President Donald Trump make a point of disliking the Biden White House videos.
The videos often get thousands of dislikes shortly after popping online, only
for a large portion of the dislikes being deleted later.
In some cases, batches of dislikes would be removed about once an hour, keeping the dislike count around the same number. In other cases, a large portion of dislikes would be chopped down at once, the data indicates.
The website 81m.org lists results of the same analysis for several other YouTube channels with large
followings. None of them exhibited dislike removals of this magnitude.
Videos of PewDiePie, one of the most popular channels on the
platform, do show some like and dislike removals, but never more than a few
dozen per video, based on a review of the data for the past more than two dozen
videos on the channel.
YouTube recently announced testing of a design that still
includes the dislike button, but no longer shows the number of dislikes.
“This is
a test for a small group of users and is a response to creator feedback that
the visible count may impact their wellbeing,” a
spokesperson said via email.
YouTube and its owner, Google, have long faced accusations of
political bias. The companies have said their products are developed and run as
politically neutral, but employee accounts
and leaked internal materials indicate the companies are
infusing their politics into their products.
According to research psychologist Robert Epstein, Google shifted
millions of votes in the Nov. 3 election by skewing its search
results and other tools, compared to competitors.
“Google
search results were strongly biased in favor of liberals and Democrats. This
was not true on Bing or Yahoo,” Epstein
told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, referring to data from more than 700 voters who
worked with him to monitor what results they were receiving from channels such
as search results, reminders, search suggestions, and newsfeeds ahead of the
election.
Google previously rejected Epstein’s research results.
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