Crypto YouTubers are complaining of another bout of censorship on their channels from YouTube.

"I will be boycotting YouTube until further notice," says Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics.

Will this censorship drive a push to decentralised protocols?

Apart from the devastating crash that Bitcoin is currently facing, another potential threat to the pioneer cryptocurrency and the entire crypto industry at large is censorship from giant tech companies like YouTube.

In a recent bout of censorship, two separate crypto YouTube channels had videos deleted temporarily.

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The two YouTubers who had their videos deleted include Ivan on Tech (a crypto programmer) and The Moon (a crypto reporter and technical analyst).

Both responded to the matter via twitter saying that they had received several strikes from YouTube about Bitcoin being “harmful content.”

YouTube’s history of censoring crypto content

YouTube has a long history of censoring crypto content.

At the tail end of 2019, many crypto YouTubers including seasoned content creators like Nicholas Merten received content strikes from YouTube despite not uploading videos for days.

In a tweet, Merten said, One the day before Christmas, @TeamYouTube gave to me…another content strike with no uploads for a week.



I’ve made all my videos private to avoid another unjustified strike. I’ve used this platform since 2007, and it’s sad to think this is the norm on YouTube nowadays.— Nicholas Merten (@Nicholas_Merten) December 25, 2019

In response, The MoonCarl also replied in a tweet that acknowledged a similar move by YouTube on his channel. I was also attacked by YouTube today. This is a sad Christmas for crypto-YouTube.#censorship #Bitcoin— The Moon (@TheMoonCarl) December 25, 2019

Other channels like Nugget News received up to two content strikes in a single day with 50 videos being removed from the channel.

Saunders, the owner of Nugget News, expressed fears of the channel getting deleted from YouTube in a tweet that read, 50 of my videos just got removed for being harmful or dangerous content. Most of these weren't even crypto videos. Tutorials, explainers, educational videos, Australian housing market updates, economics & negative interest rates. What a way to spend #Xmas. Absolutely gutted ? pic.twitter.com/SrGHaLW5na— Alex Saunders ???‍? (@AlexSaundersAU) December 24, 2019

Also affected was a Canadian Bitcoin educator with a channel called BTCSessions and Chriss Dunn a crypto and finance reporter.

Following the crypto purge of 2019 on YouTube, an outrage emerged on twitter to which YouTube replied saying that the decision to ban Bitcoin and cryptocurrency videos from its site was an ‘error’ and the removed videos would be reinstated. Hey there, really sorry about this! This was an error on our side during the review process and has been fixed now. All the videos should be reinstated and strikes resolved. Please let us know if you have any q's.— TeamYouTube at ? (@TeamYouTube) December 27, 2019

Finding a reason for the purge

It might be argued that the move was meant to protect consumers from scams.

However, for most onlookers as well as the entire crypto community, the move does not make any sense especially since Google and Facebook already lifted the crypto advertising ban in 2018.

Invezz asked Mati Greenspan, the founder of Quantum Economics, about his opinion on whether the current bout of crypto censorship is as a result of the company’s hidden agenda or the result of an internal error.

In his reply, Greenspan said that “it is difficult to know for sure but many in the community feel that the censorship is international”.

He adds,

“We could only speculate on why they might want to censor crypto content, perhaps it threatens their current future business model in some way.”

While speaking to Decrypt, a YouTube spokesman said,

“With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call….When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.”

However, with recent reports indicating a continuation of the crypto ban on YouTube, the reasons for deletion crypto-related videos remains to be anyone’s guess.

Seeking alternatives

While YouTube hasn’t responded to the recent bout of censorship and why it’s still affecting crypto-related channels, some on twitter have suggested moving crypto content to decentralized platforms that are censorship-resistant.

In reaction to last year’s crypto purge on YouTube, Greenspan together with several crypto YouTubers moved to boycott YouTube. In protest of @Google's new unexpected and unexplained censorship of #crypto content I will be boycotting @YouTube until further notice. pic.twitter.com/qpQtoArBC7— Mati Greenspan (tweets are not trading advice) (@MatiGreenspan) December 24, 2019

This time around, when asked whether there are any other viable decentralized alternatives for crypto YouTubers, Greenspan replied,

“I’m not sure there are any viable decentralized options at this point. For myself though, I’ve preferred not to stream on YouTube for the time being and instead am hosting live streams on Periscope and Twitter.”

Weighing in on the matter, Chris Burniske, a renowned crypto influencer, tweeted that such violations by companies like YouTube, “will push suppliers and consumers away from platforms and towards protocols”.

Burniske also added that since platforms like YouTube are owned by shareholders and “give no governance rights to suppliers and consumers and further centralize economic resources over time,” the violations crypto YouTubers are facing currently are “bound to repeatedly occur”.

To sum up…

Censorship on platforms like YouTube has existed for a long time. While there are many theories on twitter explaining the reasons for the latest censorship bout, it is clear to most like Burniske that this will not be the end of it. Platforms like YouTube face pressure from different governments, advertisers, and organizations to remove a wide range of content. Perhaps it’s time for the crypto community to create their decentralized alternatives much like how Everipedia is disrupting the Wikipedia formula without the use of advertisement.