YouTube may be making the dislike button harder to find on videos

You Tube is testing a change that tucks the dislike button away on regular, long-form videos. Instead of sitting next to the like button, the thumbs-down icon now shows up inside the three-dot menu for a small group of users, as reported by 9to5Google.

Screenshots shared on X and Reddit show the dislike button placed in the overflow menu alongside the "Report" option. The like button, meanwhile, stays right where it has always been.

Some users say they started seeing the new layout around two weeks ago, and it seems to be showing up mainly on the desktop website. The test looks limited for now.

Most viewers still see the dislike button in its usual spot, and Google has not commented on the change yet. You Tube has been chipping away at the dislike button since 2021This test fits a familiar pattern.

In November 2021, You Tube hid public dislike counts on videos, saying the move would protect creators from harassment and targeted dislike campaigns. Creators can still see the numbers in You Tube Studio, but viewers lost a quick way to judge a video before hitting play.

Earlier this year, the platform went a step further and removed the dislike button from Shorts entirely, pointing users to feedback options in the three-dot menu instead. At the time, Google said dislikes would continue to work as usual on long-form videos and live streams.

Technically, that still holds. You can dislike a video, it just takes an extra tap.

But an extra tap is often enough to stop people from bothering, which means fewer dislikes reach creators and You Tube's recommendation system. Users have not taken kindly to the experiment, with many on Reddit and X calling it change for the sake of change.

Going by how the Shorts test ended, though, the hidden dislike button may not stay a test for long. You use AI every day.

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