YouTube 'dislike' button rarely shifts recommendations, study finds

YouTube's dislike button does not have a direct effect on users' algorithmic recommendations, according to new data.

Mozilla announced Tuesday that it had done a quantitative and qualitative analysis of how one's interactions with some aspects of YouTube's interface affected its algorithmic recommendations and found that the "dislike" button had minimal effects.

The company found that users believed their user interfaces did not affect what they saw on the platform and that the website fails to prevent "unwanted" recommendations, according to an "experimental audit" of the platform involving more than 22,000 people using Mozilla's YouTube algorithmic research tool RegretsReporter.