New ask Hacker News story: I Am Boycotting YouTube's Like Button
I Am Boycotting YouTube's Like Button
5 by AHappyCamper | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Google recently castrated the Dislike Button, and now you can press it, but it essentially does nothing. Because no-one can see any effect, no-one will really use it, and eventually, Google will remove it altogether. Once again, Google is following in Facebook's guidebook on how to implement 1984. By removing even this meagre ability to dissent, you take away people's ability to think about dissenting (1984). This is morally wrong, and it should offend the senses of any true engineer. Engineers (and other critical thinkers) make observations on the world based on the data they perceive. If the data is corrupted, skewed, or biased, then our observations are equally so. By removing a critical piece of data - people's dislike of a video, Google has corrupted the observations of their viewers, and in doing so, has made the world less honest. E.g. imagine you see a video on remedies for arthritis. The video has 11,000 likes. Just from that data alone, you would assume that there may be merit to the remedies suggested. But if the dislike count was displayed, you would be able to see that it had 250,000 dislikes, meaning that this remedy may have caused harm to many more viewers than it helped. The dislike capability is necessary for making accurate observations of the world in a communal setting, and Google should replace it ASAP.
5 by AHappyCamper | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Google recently castrated the Dislike Button, and now you can press it, but it essentially does nothing. Because no-one can see any effect, no-one will really use it, and eventually, Google will remove it altogether. Once again, Google is following in Facebook's guidebook on how to implement 1984. By removing even this meagre ability to dissent, you take away people's ability to think about dissenting (1984). This is morally wrong, and it should offend the senses of any true engineer. Engineers (and other critical thinkers) make observations on the world based on the data they perceive. If the data is corrupted, skewed, or biased, then our observations are equally so. By removing a critical piece of data - people's dislike of a video, Google has corrupted the observations of their viewers, and in doing so, has made the world less honest. E.g. imagine you see a video on remedies for arthritis. The video has 11,000 likes. Just from that data alone, you would assume that there may be merit to the remedies suggested. But if the dislike count was displayed, you would be able to see that it had 250,000 dislikes, meaning that this remedy may have caused harm to many more viewers than it helped. The dislike capability is necessary for making accurate observations of the world in a communal setting, and Google should replace it ASAP.
Comments
Post a Comment