On December 26, YouTube released a statement saying the platform had mistakenly removed hundreds of crypto-related videos this week.
However, many of the YouTubers affected by the ban still have not had their videos restored on the site.
YouTuber Ivan on Tech told Cointelegraph on December 26th:
“Nothing has changed. YouTube said this was a mistake yesterday too. I’m not sure why they are saying this.”
Ivan on Tech’s YouTube account, which has more than 210,000 subscribers, received a strike from YouTube earlier this week. He has since set all of his crypto-related videos to private as a precaution.
YouTuber Carl The Moon also told Cointelegraph on December 26th that all of his videos are still removed from the platform, noting that he is not sure of the validity of YouTube’s recent statement.
“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,” said Carl.
YouTube’s community guidelines do not address crypto
According to YouTube’s community guidelines, content is automatically removed if it violates the platform’s guidelines. This could include nudity or sexual content, harmful or dangerous content, hateful content, violent or graphic content, harassment or cyberbullying, spams, scams and more.
While this may be the case, crypto YouTubers have expressed confusion as to why their content is being deleted, a point of concern that YouTube has failed to clarify.
We do know that Alex Saunders YouTube channel, Nugget’s News, which has 64.6k subscribers, has been banned due to “harmful or dangerous content.”
Saunders posted in the r/ethereum community on Reddit 9 hours prior to press time that he woke up on Christmas to a strike warning from YouTube for posting “harmful or dangerous” content. Following this, Saunders received another strike in a matter of hours, even though he hadn’t taken any action since the first warning.
According to Saunder’s Reddit thread,
“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 11 hours prior to press time,“Hi @TeamYouTube with over 100 videos removed & 2 strikes in 24 hours I have still not even received an email from you. This is really scary. We’ve hired new staff. I have a wife & baby to support. I can’t fix the problem if I don’t know what I’ve done or who to communicate with!?”
Source: Twitter
YouTuber Omar Bham, who created a list of well-known YouTubers affected by the ban, received a response on Twitter from @TeamYouTube on December 24th.
Source Twitter
Bham told Cointelegraph that he has not heard any updates from YouTube since then:
“The extent of this is unknown. I keep hearing of smaller channels, not on my list, which have completely disappeared.”
However, Bham did tweet 5 minutes ago to press an update that YouTube has restored his one video that had previously been taken down:
“Update: YouTube has repealed my warning and reposted the video, which they had previously removed. Crypto YouTube is not dead (just yet, anyway).”
YouTube has still not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for an update on the matter since admitting content was taken down as a mistake on December 24th.
