On December 26, a statement was released by YouTube saying that the social media giant mistakenly removed crypto-related videos. According to the report, hundreds were deleted. Even so, YouTubers that were affected by this ban still do not have videos restored.
According to Ivan on Tech:
“Nothing has changed. YouTube said this was a mistake yesterday too. I’m not sure why they are saying this.”
This account has over 210,000 subscribers and got hit by a YouTube strike at the start of the week. All the crypto-related videos ended up being posted as being private in order to be cautious.
Another YouTuber, Carl The moon, declared that videos are actually being removed right now, without any relation to validity. He said:
“This was the first time I was punished by YouTube and I got a warning. When you have a warning, you will get a strike next time. After 3 strikes within 90 days, YouTube permanently removes your channel.”
No Mention Of Crypto In YouTube Community Guidelines
The community guidelines of YouTube state that content is removed when it violates YouTube guidelines. This can include sexual content, nudity, dangerous content, harmful content, graphic content, violent content, hateful content, scams, spams, cyberbullying and a whole lot more.
Due to this, many YouTubers talking about crypto were confused as they do not understand why content is deleted. YouTube did not clarify this either.
Nugget’s News, which is Alex Saunders’ YouTube channel, with almost 65,000 subscribers, was banned because of posting “harmful or dangerous content.” This was shown on a Reddit form. There, Saunders said:
“Today I woke up on Xmas to a strike warning from YouTube for harmful or dangerous content. Checked my email, nothing. A few hours later after Xmas lunch, another strike. I hadn’t even done anything on Youtube since the first strike. Still no email. I cover a lot of topics related to finance, economics, housing market, stocks as well as crypto related content. We don’t do paid ICO or token promotion. I have done tutorials on leverage trading platforms. I’m really not sure what to do. If the trend continues most crypto youtubers will be affected.”
Saunders also tweeted:
Omar Bham, another YouTuber, actually created a list of the YouTubers that are well-known and that were affected by the YouTube crypto ban. He actually got a response from YouTube:
According to Bham, no updates were offered:
“The extend of this is unknown. I keep hearing of smaller channels, not on my list, which have completely disappeared.”
Even so, Omar mentioned that a video of his that was banned in the past was restored:
“Update: YouTube has repealed my warning and reposted the video, which they had previously removed. Crypto YouTube is not dead (just yet, anyway).”
Conclusions
YouTube claims that the bans were a mistake but it does not do anything to address the incident. This can be really problematic for countless people talking about crypto topics online. Although YouTube will, most likely, offer access to the videos again and relieve the ban, it shows how quickly such content can go down. YouTubers and crypto bloggers need to think about this in the future since a precedent was created.
