If you’re looking for a new title to watch on Netflix, don’t bother consulting other users. The streaming giant has recently deleted all user reviews for TV shows and movies on the site.
The company announced the decision last month and has already taken steps to not allow new reviews on July 30th.
According to the Netflix help page, “Netflix customers were able to leave reviews on Netflix.com until mid-2018, when reviews were removed due to declining use.”
These user reviews were only available from the Netflix website, a medium that has been rapidly declining in usage as of late.
However, there are other ways Netflix recommends content to its users. The “Because You Watched” tab offers viewers similar programming to a film or show they just finished, tracking their interests based on what they click.
As streamers rely more on such algorithms to keep users stuck to screens, there’s been a decline in platforms for peer-to-peer recommendations.
Netflix erasing its reviews section comes a little more than a year after IMDb, the Amazon-owned database for film and television, shut down its comment boards.
This is not the first move Netflix has made to user accessibility, as they traded in their five-star ratings for a simple thumbs up-thumbs down system as well.
At the time, a Netflix representative spoke to Vanity Fair about the change, “The reviews never contributed to how we are approaching personalizing recommendations for our broader member base. Writing a ‘bad review’ never had any bearing to whether a title was recommended to other viewers or not.”
“The redesigned ratings system (thumbs up/down) helps us understand what to recommend to the specific member who gave that particular rating in the future but does not impact what we recommend to other members. Recommendations to members are always personalized based on what we think that specific member will enjoy watching based on what they have watched before.”
Users can still look forward to Netflix’s own broad recommendations. “It’s a great built-in way to only suggest content we think you’ll love based on your viewing history,” the company says.