Google Says YouTube's Relocated Dislike Button Only Applies to Your Own Videos

Viewers who noticed the change said the thumbs-down icon no longer sat beside the like button beneath a video but had been placed behind a three-dot overflow menu, requiring an extra tap before a video could be disliked. Some of those users interpreted the new placement as an attempt by YouTube to discourage negative feedback, according to the report.

Google's confirmation narrows the scope of the change considerably. The overflow-menu treatment is limited to videos posted by the account holder, rather than to videos on the platform generally, meaning viewers watching other people's uploads should still find the dislike control where it has been.

Small adjustments to YouTube's interface have regularly met resistance from viewers, and the reaction to the dislike button followed that pattern. Android Authority noted that the shift, while not drastic on its own, read to some users as the service going out of its way to make negative feedback harder to leave. The episode sits alongside the platform's longer-running disputes with ad-blocking tools, which have kept tensions between YouTube and parts of its audience running for years.

The report did not indicate that Google plans any further change to the dislike button's placement or behavior.