YouTube Dislike Counter Is the YouTube Dislike Count Coming Back?
Every few months the question resurfaces, usually after a viral post claiming the button is back. So: is the YouTube dislike count coming back? On the public evidence, no — and the reasons it will not are worth understanding, because they explain why the workarounds exist.
Where things actually stand
| What | Status |
|---|---|
| The dislike button | Still there, still works |
| Your vote reaching the creator | Still happens |
| The public count | Hidden since November 2021 |
| The API field | Private since 13 December 2021 — owner only |
| Any announced reversal | None |
Why the recurring rumours are wrong
Three things get mistaken for the count returning, and it is easy to see why.
Someone has an extension installed and forgets. A friend sees a dislike number on your screen and concludes YouTube brought it back. This is the most common source by far.
A creator posts a Studio screenshot. Uploaders have always been able to see their own dislike totals. A screenshot of that is not evidence of a public change.
An interface test gets misread. YouTube runs limited experiments constantly, and any one of them can look like a rollback to whoever is in the test group.
Why a reversal is unlikely
YouTube’s stated reason, in its November 2021 announcement, was protecting creators from harassment and reducing organised dislike campaigns, and the company said its experiment supported that (the full timeline is in why YouTube removed the dislike count). Whether or not you find the argument convincing — and plenty of people did not, partly because no data was published alongside it — the position has not shifted in the years since. There has been no consultation, no pilot to restore it, and no acknowledgement that the decision is under review.
There is also a structural reason. Restoring the number now would re-enable exactly the behaviour the change was meant to suppress, and would do it visibly, in public, with a press cycle attached. Reversals of that shape are rare.
How to check a claim yourself
You do not have to take anyone’s word for it, including ours. Three checks settle it in under a minute:
- Open a video in a private window with extensions disabled. This strips out anything you have installed. If no number appears, nothing has changed.
- Try a signed-out browser or a different device. Interface experiments are usually tied to an account or a device, so a change that follows you everywhere is real and one that does not is a test.
- Look for an announcement, not a screenshot. A change of this size would come with a post from YouTube itself. Screenshots circulate for months without one.
What would have to change
For the count to return, YouTube would need to conclude that the visible number does more good than harm — the opposite of the position it argued in 2021. Nothing public suggests that reassessment is happening, and the practical asymmetry works against it: leaving the count hidden costs the company nothing visible, while restoring it would immediately revive the dislike campaigns the change was meant to suppress.
The button surviving is the part worth noticing. YouTube could have removed it entirely and did not, which means the data still exists and the feedback still reaches creators. Only the audience-facing half was switched off.
What you can do instead
The data did not vanish when the display did. Third-party archives kept the public totals from before the change and have tracked votes since, which is what makes a YouTube dislike counter possible: an extension writes the figure back into the page beside the like button, and a dislike checker answers the same question for one video without installing anything.
These are reconstructions rather than the original, and it is worth being clear about the limit: figures for older videos are exact archived totals, while newer ones are estimates from a sample. The ratio is reliable; the last digits are not.
Frequently asked questions
Did YouTube ever say the change was temporary?
No. It was announced as a permanent change to the public interface.
Has any petition worked?
No. The petitions gathered large numbers of signatures and produced no policy change.
Can creators turn the public count back on for their own videos?
No. There is no per-video setting for it.
If it did come back, would extensions still be needed?
No — they exist only to replace the missing display, and would have nothing to do.
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