YouTube will make the dislike count on videos private, three out of four adults think Facebook makes society worse, and it’s not a very magical week for Disney as the company reports a smaller than forecasted streaming increase for Disney+.
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It’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday, November 12, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
YouTube announced in a blog post that it will soon make the dislike count on videos private across the platform. Earlier this year YouTube experimented with the dislike button to see if hiding the count would reduce “dislike attacks.” Viewers were still able to see and use the dislike button but the count was not visible. YouTube said that smaller creators were unfairly targeted by dislike attacks and confirmed that the attacks do occur more frequently on smaller channels. The new update, rolling out this week, will still allow creators to view their exact dislike count.
https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/update-to-youtube/
According to a CNN poll, three out of four adults think Facebook is making society worse. Up to 70 per cent of Facebook users who report using the site several times a week say that the social network harms, rather than helps, U.S. society. This feeling is even stronger among Republicans. 44 percent of Republicans and 27 per cent of Democrats said Facebook is making American society worse and that Facebook itself is more at fault than its users. The poll also found that 49 per cent of Americans know someone who they think was persuaded to believe in a conspiracy theory because of Facebook content.
Walt Disney reported a smaller than forecasted customer increase for its streaming service Disney+. According to a Bloomberg article, Disney+ gained 2.1 million customers in the fiscal fourth quarter, bringing the total to 118.1 million globally. However, analysts were forecasting 119.6 million. This was the smallest quarterly gain for the service since launching two years ago. Disney has made its streaming service the main focus for growth in the next few years. By 2021, management said it plans to have 260 million customers.
Now for something a little different. Many people, myself included, sometimes waste a tremendous amount of time mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. But with a new Take a Break feature, Instagram hopes to remind people of their responsibilities outside of social media. The feature will notify people to be more mindful or even just take a few deep breaths. It is still a work in progress as the platform is figuring out how exactly to position this for its users.