[willis936]

And that somehow means they are making decisions optimal for users or society, contrary to their behavior history?

[shadowgovt]

It means they're more likely to have the resources and data to think decisions like this through.

Especially given that I've seen other social networks take a similar course, I trust Google's analysis of the effect of visible vs. invisible dislike counts over the ad-hoc common sense of the uninvested technorati.