YouTube Shorts 2x Playback Update Adds Clear Screen Mode and Removes Dislikes

YouTube Shorts 2x Playback Update Adds Clear Screen Mode and Removes Dislikes YouTube rolled out four changes to the Shorts player this week, and the most consequential has nothing to do with playback speed. The YouTube Shorts 2x playback update is the feature getting attention, but the structural change sits elsewhere: the dislike button is gone from Shorts, replaced by explicit recommendation controls that route negative feedback directly to YouTube's algorithm rather than surfacing it to creators, per the YouTube Blog announcement. Three of the four changes are viewer-facing friction reductions. The fourth changes what creators can see about their own audience. That distinction is worth tracking. What the YouTube Shorts new features actually do for viewers Hold either edge of the screen and the current Short doubles in speed. Release and it drops back to normal. Drag down while holding to lock playback at 2x. A mute button now surfaces automatically when a video is paused, so sile