YouTube Just Quietly Buried the Dislike Button on Shorts. Here's Everything Else That Changed Today

YouTube has rolled out a fresh batch of changes to Shorts, and this time the updates touch almost everything from how you watch a video to how you react to it. The company says the goal is to give viewers more say over their experience while making the feedback system less confusing for everyone involved.

A cleaner screen, finally

One of the most useful changes here is something called Clear screen. A single tap on the player now hides every button and bit of text sitting on top of the video, leaving just the content. Tap again, and everything comes back. It is a small fix, but anyone who has felt distracted by captions, icons, and overlays crowding a vertical video will likely welcome this.

YouTube has also bundled features that used to be scattered around the screen, like audio tracks and links to related videos, into a single swipeable strip placed just below the title. Less clutter, fewer things competing for your attention while you watch.

Watch faster, mute easier

Shorts can now be played at double speed. Press and hold the edge of the screen, and the video speeds up. Want it to stay at that speed for the rest of the clip? Swipe down while still holding the screen, and it locks in. This should come in handy for anyone trying to get through a long recipe video or a rambling explainer without losing patience.

Muting has also gotten simpler. Pause the video, tap the mute icon, and the sound is gone. No need to dig through settings or rely on your phone's hardware buttons.

The dislike button is gone, not hidden this time

Here is the part creators will care about most. YouTube is removing the dislike button from Shorts altogether and swapping the thumbs-up icon for a heart. The company says a heart gives people a better way to show when a video genuinely connects with them, rather than a flat like or dislike.

This is not the first time YouTube has tinkered with this idea. The platform tested similar changes to the dislike button in 2024 and again in late 2025, but this is the first time the change is rolling out fully and permanently across Shorts, not as a limited test.

Viewers who don't enjoy a Short are not left with no options, though. The three-dot menu still carries "Not interested," "Don't recommend this channel," and "Report." YouTube is also adding more depth to the "Not interested" option, letting people pick a reason, whether the video felt irrelevant, boring, or something else, so the platform can fine-tune what shows up next.

What this means for creators

If you make Shorts, the dislike count you've tracked for years in YouTube Studio will stop updating by the end of June. The old numbers will still be visible as historical data, but no new dislikes will be added to that count going forward. Dislikes on regular long-form videos and live streams remain untouched, this change is limited strictly to Shorts.

Creators will still be able to keep tabs on how their Shorts are doing through likes and through how many people stuck around to watch instead of swiping past. That swipe-away number has quietly become one of the more reliable signals for judging whether a Short is actually working.

None of this is happening in isolation. Over the past several months, YouTube has been steadily smoothing out rough edges across its video player on phones, browsers, and television sets, moving toward fewer buttons and a cleaner layout everywhere people watch. Today's update simply applies that same thinking to Shorts, a format that has always had less room to work with thanks to its vertical frame.

It also brings Shorts a little closer in feel to Instagram Reels and TikTok, both of which have leaned on heart-based reactions and distraction-free viewing for a while now. Whether that's a coincidence or a deliberate catch-up move is something YouTube hasn't directly addressed, but the timing is hard to ignore.

These changes are rolling out gradually over the coming weeks, so do not be surprised if your Shorts feed looks a little different from a friend's for a while.

Read More: YouTube Testing New Mobile Layout That Moves ‘Subscriptions’ Tab