YouTube will now hide the dislike counter on videos

The dislike counter is about to disappear from your most hated YouTube videos, but the dislike button isn’t going away. YouTube posted the news in a blog on Wednesday. It also provided context for why YouTube would remove the dislike count from all videos.

While the dislike counter — which, as the name suggests, counts how many times people have disliked a YouTube video — has its uses, YouTube researchers discovered that many users tend to bombard a single video in a kind of review-bomb-like tactic. This tanks the video not because of its content, but because people don’t like the creator themselves, or some other wayward reason. Call of Duty fanatics used the exact same tactic to propel their game. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer into the “most disliked video” back in 2016 — although it was quickly dethroned.

In an effort to discourage mass disliking and help all creators thrive — be they giant corporate machines like Activision, or individual channels — the dislike counter will now be private.

YouTube did actually test the idea of removing the dislike counter early this year. Its findings led it to decide to eliminate the counter from every video. Although users won’t be able to check a video’s quality at a glance quite as easily, YouTube seems more concerned about the mental distress and discouragement that mass dislikes can cause.

To curate YouTube recommendations for users, they can still dislike videos. Content creators will be able check the number of dislikes that their videos have received to help them research.

YouTube already has this transition in place and will eventually take control of the whole site.