Russian channels hide dislikes under Putin's New Year's address
Channel One Russia, as well as All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (Russia-1 and Russia-24 TV channels), hid the counters of likes and dislikes under the Russian President Vladimir Putin's New Year's address in YouTube. The TV channels also turned off the comments under the video. The NTV channel turned off the comments.
OpenMedia online publication reports that the situation was similar in 2019. By the middle of January 1, under Putin's speech on the Russia-1 YouTube channel, there were 4000 dislikes and only 1000 likes. Channel One Russia, in turn, had 12 thousand likes and more than 66 thousand dislikes on the same video.
Russia-24 hid the counter under the President's address after the broadcast of Putin's large press conference in December 2019. Then the users started to click the dislike button massively.
In 2018, comments were turned off, and the counters were disabled under the videos with the Putin's New Year's speech, posted by Russia-1 and Channel One Russia TV channels. Several observers noted then that some of the accounts, the authors of which put dislikes and left negative comments, were registered just a day before the broadcast.