Bitcoin and Crypto At War With Google’s YouTube

One You TuberChris Dunn, who has some 210,000 subscribers on the platform, asked YouTube for an explanation via Twitter regarding the reasons behind why the YouTube crypto-purge appears to only be targeting smaller channels and publishers, with crypto-related videos from the likes of bitcoin and crypto news outlet Coin Telegraph and U.S. business news publisher CNBC escaping the cull.

“YouTube just removed most of my crypto videos citing ‘harmful or dangerous content’ and ‘sale of regulated goods,'” Dunn wrote, adding he’s been making videos on the platform for 10 years and built up 200,000 subs and 7 million views.

The number of videos targeted by Google’s YouTube is well into the hundreds and “growing fast.”

Some in the bitcoin and crypto currency industry have vowed to challenge the decision.

“YouTube deleting all Crypto content is a massive blow to the industry,” Ran NeuNer, host of the Crypto Trader show on CNBC Africa, said via Twitter.

“YouTube is the go to place for educational video and the first port of call for new people entering the ecosystem to learn the basics. As a community we should challenge this formally.”

Meanwhile, others have been searching for a reason for the purge, finding YouTube’s citing of “harmful and dangerous content” unsatisfactory.

“So far Alphabet [Google’s parent company] has made no attempt to explain the reasons for the culling,” Mati Greenspan, the founder of research group Quantum Economics, wrote in a note.

“The first instinct that many had was that perhaps they’re trying to protect the consumer from scams. However, this wouldn’t make much sense given that Google and Facebook have already had a crypto advertising ban last year that has long since been reversed, likely due to regulatory clarity in the U.S. where it was found that bitcoin and Ethereum are neither securities nor scams.”

Greenspan added he is now “officially boycotting YouTube” due to the crypto-purge.

Last month, Google, in partnership with U.S. banking giant Citigroup, said it’s planning to launch its own fully-fledged “smart checking” bank accounts via Google Pay–piling pressure on bitcoin developers to improve user experience and adoption or face redundancy.

Google, along with the likes of social media giant Facebook, has been increasingly looking to financial services to bolster advertisement revenue in recent years, with public opinion moving against ad-funded business models.