what happened to the dislike button on youtube
YouTube did not remove the dislike button entirely in the original change; in 2021, it hid public dislike counts while keeping the button itself available. More recently, YouTube has been testing changes on Shorts where the dislike button may be moved, renamed, or folded into “Not interested,” and in some tests it appears to disappear from the main UI.
What changed
- In 2021, YouTube stopped showing the public dislike count, but viewers could still tap dislike.
- In later Shorts experiments, YouTube moved dislike into the overflow menu for some users.
- Some test versions also merge “Dislike” with “Not interested,” or relabel the action.
- As of recent reports, these changes seem limited mainly to YouTube Shorts , not all regular YouTube videos.
Why YouTube did it
YouTube says it wants feedback that better reflects viewer intent, because a dislike can mean many different things, not just “bad video.”
The company has also said it’s trying to make recommendations easier to tune using clearer signals like “Not interested” and “Don’t recommend this channel.”
What you may be seeing
If the dislike button looks gone, it may be one of these cases:
- You’re in a Shorts test where the button was moved into the three-dot menu.
- You’re seeing a test where dislike was renamed or merged with “Not interested.”
- A separate UI bug is hiding buttons altogether on Shorts for some users.
Quick scoop
The short version: the dislike button hasn’t been universally deleted, but YouTube has been steadily making it less visible and more context-dependent, especially on Shorts.