When you’re watching a really popular YouTube videos you’ll check and see that it has like 10,000 likes and 398 dislikes and you go “holy crap how many people have seen this!?”

Then you check over on the views and see that wait, it only has 301 views? How the hell is that possible? Well, according to the latest episode of Numberphile, YouTube stops the view count at 300 to check for counterfeit views and to make sure everything is legit. They don’t do the same thing for likes or dislikes.

But why 300? And why does it stop at 301, 305 or 304? Well, 300 is a small enough number where it isn’t too crazy and it goes over because of the algorithm. See, if multiple views register right as it hits 300 it logs them in and shuts them off. So say eight people see a video when it’s at 299, the view count will stop at 307.

Now you know, so you can stop commenting on YouTube videos asking why the views are so low and the likes so high. You can watch the Numberphile episode above. [Numberphile via The Verge]

301 views, youtube