The following scenario probably happened to you: when watching a video on YouTube, you can see that he has received over a thousand “liked”, although the number of no more than 301 views. More than a bug or a result of alleged cheating, this number is the result of the protection system developed by Google for its video site.

In an interview with Brady Haran (also known as Numberphile), Ted Hamilton, from YouTube Analytics, explained how the system works. According to him, blocking the number of views in 301 aims to prevent frauds abusing the service system that provides cash payments to producers of the most popular content.

Hamilton explains that once a video is viewed over 300 times, there is an automatic stay in the number of counts only after the company perform an analysis of data collected is the amount of views to grow back normally. Google’s intention is to prevent people from being cheated by misleading links or descriptions and photographs that do not match the content on the website.