YouTube and Netflix Removed Dislikes to Protect Political Narratives From Being Ratioed

I think there's a pretty obvious reason YouTube and Netflix moved away from showing dislike ratios and other forms of visible negative feedback: it makes it harder to see when people actually disagree with the narrative being promoted.

If an approved doctor, scientist, academic, journalist, etc. says something and gets overwhelmingly disliked, people can see that. Likewise, if an alternative viewpoint gets overwhelmingly liked, people can see that. Once you remove the ratio, you remove that immediate indication of what the audience actually thinks.

I also find the timing interesting. Netflix was pushing things like Amy Schumer's special and a broader cultural push around feminism and women in entertainment and other institutions. Helen Andrews has written about the broader phenomenon in The Great Feminization.

Then YouTube removed the public dislike count during COVID, when there was huge disagreement over vaccines, Fauci, lockdowns, and other pandemic policies. There were doctors and scientists questioning the prevailing narrative, along with people like Joe Rogan giving alternative views a huge audience. A visible ratio could show how much disagreement there actually was, rather than simply allowing the approved experts and viewpoints to appear universally accepted.