TL;DR: Anecdotal reports of cryptocurrency-related YouTube channels receiving strikes against their accounts surfaced earlier this week, then ramped up suddenly yesterday, and by Christmas morning dozens of content creators had been impacted. The Google-owned platform is apparently purging crypto sites in some cases completely, leading to calls of censorship and highlighting the need for alternative video-hosting sites.

YouTube Begins Crackdown on Crypto Content

Popular YouTube personality Omar Bham, known as Crypt0, tweeted, “In case YouTube decides to delete my channel (or most of my videos), please follow me on LBRY. They’ve already hit many of the crypto channels you know and love, so the attack may already be here against cryptocurrency.”

He was caught off guard by news of fellow crypto YouTuber Chris Dunn finding the company had “just removed most of my crypto videos citing ‘harmful or dangerous content’ and ‘sale of regulated goods’… it’s been 10 years of making videos, 200k+ subs, and 7M+ views. WTF are you guys doing!”

As various lists circulated, it wasn’t clear what the common denominator for content striking was exactly, but cryptocurrency channels were indeed being singled out. Newer crypto YouTubers to well-established veterans had notices awaiting their log-ins, with some receiving a warning to others having entire bodies of work confiscated.

LBRY Tried to Warn the Crypto Community

“The Crypto YouTube Carnage has reached my channel,” Ivan on Tech lamented. “Just got also a strike for ‘harmful content’ just like @ChicoCrypto @ChrisDunnTV @blockchainchick @ChrisConeyInt and some others. Can’t upload for a week,” he noted. When asked what video was flagged, he shrugged, “old video from 2018, crypto news update.”

Decentralized, crypto-friendly platform LBRY seized the opportunity. “Sneaky of YouTube to do this to all the crypto content creators right before Christmas when everyone is distracted.” Earlier this month LBRY highlighted coming changes to the YouTube platform. “Escape YouTube before it’s too late,” the company urged, which turned out to be very good advice.

LBRY has been at the forefront of pushing the decentralized social media idea for a while. When Facebook purged alternative media sites back during this time last year, the platformed welcomed those pages over. In recent months, the platform has seen an increase in YouTube personalities migrating content to their site. Controversial creators such as Stefan Molyneux, with 1,000,000 strong following for example, have long complained of arbitrary YouTube censorship. He and others have begun the process of at least hedging by placing videos on the likes well-positioned decentralized platforms such as LBRY.

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