Whenever rich powerful people or companies says "Helping Small Creators", "Investing millions in small business", "Helping Small Companies", "Donate to support this cause" its almost a sign that something is shady. By removing the like count user will probably not engage that much which means loss of revue through adverts. However if they remove dislikes there is high probability of engagement because you don't know if the video is bad.

And this feature is not even required AFAIK. Creators can simply disable like & dislike if they think they are being targeted.