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YouTube Goes To War With Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency 134

Posted by BeauHD from the troubling-news dept.
Google has decided to remove hundreds of bitcoin and cryptocurrency videos from YouTube in what's being called a "crypto-purge" -- leaving many who make bitcoin and cryptocurrency-related videos feeling unfairly targeted by the search giant. A YouTube spokesperson said the video-sharing platform has since reinstated the purged videos, however some content creators claim their deleted videos remain inaccessible. Forbes reports: 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 CoinTelegraph and U.S. business news publisher CNBC escaping the cull. One YouTuber Chris Dunn, who has some 210,000 subscribers on the platform, asked YouTube for an explanation via Twitter. "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.

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." A YouTube spokesperson told CoinDesk that YouTube made "the wrong call."

"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. We also offer uploaders the ability to appeal removals and we will re-review the content," the spokesperson said. The spokesperson further stated that YouTube has not changed any policies related to cryptocurrency videos.
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YouTube Goes To War With Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency More

YouTube Goes To War With Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency

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  • YouTube is no longer a viable source of info (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @02:05AM (#59560956)

    These days anything could be booted off YouTube at any time, for any whim of the overlords (or algorithms of the overlords).

    If I were producing any video content YouTube would be secondary so people could find it, but I'd host a primary source somewhere that could stay up in the event of a YouTube purge.

    What this also means is that YouTube is no longer a great place to search for information. You may not know what you are missing that has been eradicated.

    • These days anything could be booted off YouTube at any time, for any whim of the overlords (or algorithms of the overlords).

      If I were producing any video content YouTube would be secondary so people could find it, but I'd host a primary source somewhere that could stay up in the event of a YouTube purge.

      What this also means is that YouTube is no longer a great place to search for information. You may not know what you are missing that has been eradicated.

      The problem isn't the loss of the videos, the problem is the audience. If you have enough of the right audience you can actually make a pretty good living on YouTube, if you get the boot it's pretty hard to use those skills elsewhere.

      I mean it's not the first time someone has lost a job, but these YouTube/Vine/Instagram celebrities need to remember just how dependent they are on the whims of a single platform.

      • Close: it's not the audience, but the ability to make a buck off that audience. There are alternative platforms (and you could host your videos yourself), but even if you manage to take all of your adience with you to the new platform, you'd probably still make a lot less than you did on YT.

        There's a few exceptions like Twitch and Mixer, where you can make plenty with a big audience, though those places are for live streaming rather than edited content. A lot of streamers already moved to one of those
        • They already have VODs and the content doesn't need to strictly be live, the uploaders can simply do their own "premiere" on Twitch.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            Only Twitch users who have earned Affiliate status through live streaming are allowed to upload. (Source [twitch.tv]) What resources do you recommend for someone accustomed to producing edited videos to make the transition to live streaming?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Try BitChute, Brighteon.

    • You've been pushing a pyramid scheme / multi-level marketing scam. Now Bitcoin has been found out and you are upset. Well, all that money you have in Bitcoin - it's now (reasonably soon) toast. There is no inherent value in Bitcoin and when other crypto-coins come out that you can use for actually paying taxes and other similar things then Bitcoin will fully realise it's total value proposition.

      In other words, if you got out already then respect. If you are still bitcoin pushing then we are laughing a

      • Why do you think Gold was useful as money in the free market?

        Bitcoin is really decentralized => Impossible to kill; Bitcoin is scarcer than Gold!

        Scarcity has value, in a world brain washed by Keynesians, for the last century; A world where money is not scarce anymore.

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Complete nonsense. The type of lies a typical pyramid-scammer pushes, and his victims repeat. Gold has value in industrial applications hence it will not completely crash. In fact, the industrial value is not that low.

          Bitcoin has absolutely no value, it is far worse than tulips. It is a pure fantasy-based speculation construct.

          • With your reasoning; Gold is a scam too. Arts are a store of value too. Arts are a scam?

            Bitcoin is a genuine invention, and the greatest of the 21st century; We have now, one and only one genuinely scarce asset in the technology world: Bitcoin
            • He already said that gold has an industrial application, therefore real value, modern art is definitely a money laundering scam.
              • Utility is not important for a monetary good, like Gold was. Being a monetary good increases the value of the commodity. Gold usage, like Gold teeth, or electronic usage, decrease over time.

                The scarcity is defined by the stock-to-flow ratio. Gold was the Best; Gold is now challenged by Bitcoin.

                https://medium.com/@100trillio... [medium.com]

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by gweihir ( 88907 )

                  A currency needs a trustworthy backer that assures its value and it needs to be easy and cheap to exchange. All BC has is a shared delusion. As soon as that breaks down, nothing is left. It is already completely unusable as a currency because it has no stability and trades take forever or are very expensive.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Please mod up and mod grand parent post down. Spouting nonsense about Bitcoin over and over again will not make it true.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Nobody controls Bitcoin. Whales are not wealthy enough.

            Bitcoin is finite; FIAT is not. Bitcoin is in a free market; FIAT is not. The volatility is inevitable.

            • Lol the whales certainly do control it. Watch the fluctuations. They are steep as can be. That isn't happening without market manipulation.

              • This is just how markets operate with Longs and Shorts. Bitcoin is just smaller with less liquidity.

            • Nobody controls Bitcoin.

              Well, there is a different opinion. Indeed, nobody controls Bitcoin among those who play by the rules. But there are also people who set the rules. People who can say e.g. "making money through integer overflow is a bug, not a feature" and can declare hard forks. Those are the real masters. This is even more obvious with Ethereum, see the story about The DAO as one real example.

          • > The entire point of Bitcoin was to be a transfer of wealth, NOT a store of wealth

            For some reason* the exchanges let Blockstream keep the BTC ticker when they forked their Core into an altcoin that violates the protocol**, but the entire cypherpunk community continued Bitcoin development on the Cash chain, which has utility in commerce and a fiat price that represents actual value based on that utility (BTC is a house of cards now).

            It's so bad that their kludges let you buy goods with BTC in a brick-and

            • Bitcoin was a simple medium of exchange, at a time when it was not taken seriously. This area is over, and will not come back. Writing a conspiracy theory about Blockstream will not change the world.

              Bitcoin is driven, from an economic perspective, by the same rules that apply to the Gold Standard. You should read the book 'The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking' is more useful. At least, you will understand why BCASH was not a viable project.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rho ( 6063 )

          Scarcity has value

          My virginity was pretty scarce, but it didn't have much value, except to me.

          Bitcoin is technically interesting, but largely worthless without all the other trappings that go along with traditional currencies. Trappings like a legal framework for dealing with theft, embezzlement or fraud.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

            Your virginity may be scarce, but there are plenty of alternative virgins. There are 360,000 births per day in the world, so on average, we would expect a bit fewer than 360,000 virgins to lose their virginity on any given day (slightly fewer because most don't lose it the day they're born, and world population growth is lower in previous years). Virginity as a whole is not scarce.

            Likewise, Bitcoin may be scarce, but plenty of alternative crypto currencies exist. Dogecoin or Etherium can be used in the same

      • Value is what someone is willing to pay. Given that many exchanges are operating and Bitcoins are moving, they do indeed have value.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "These days anything could be booted off YouTube at any time, for any whim of the overlords (or algorithms of the overlords)." Yes like a harmless cat video from "Louis Rossmann", classified as dangerous and harmful!. Youtube has lost its marbles.

      • Yes like a harmless cat video from "Louis Rossmann"

        It wasnt harmless. The cat is named Clinton and the wording of the title was negative towards Clinton.

        There is no evidence of political bias. Move along, citizen.

    • These days anything could be booted off YouTube at any time, for any whim of the overlords (or algorithms of the overlords).

      Yep, and the idea that an mistakenly removed video can be "quickly reinstated" is a complete joke.

      There is no mechanism to "bring it to their attention".

    • I, for one, welcome the arbitrary and capricious whims of our evil Googlenazi overlords!

    • This assumes cryptocurrency is somehow worthy of consideration. News flash: it isn't.

    • YouTube has been systematically trying to purge people to eventually cut costs while masking it under the guise of "changes in policy". It's been like this for the last 4 years now.
  • Finally. More like this, please.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • A day in the life. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @02:44AM (#59560994) Homepage Journal

    Susan Wojcicki: Okay! Get ready to nuke us some vids!

    Random YT Tech 1: Shouldn't we talk with the userbase?

    Random YT Tech2: Make them aware of what we're doing?

    Random YT Tech 3: Maybe check to make sure we aren't gonna affect innocent users?

    Susan Wojcicki: Nah! Fuck them nerds! And all three of you are fired! And the company's going to speak with your landlords to kick you out. NEVER QUESTION ME! Now go live out in the piles of poop in San Francisco!

  • After digital purchase, rub the area which hurts against a USB port of your device (any other port will also do).

    Sounds too good to be true? That's because it is ... just like BitCoin. Selling ponzi slash gambling as "investment" is not much better than quackery. Those BitCoin pushers should be happy the only thing happening to them is their videos are taken down. Used to be they would be rolled in tar and covered with feathers.

    • In a Ponzi scheme: the rate is paid by new investors.

      Bitcoin is a genuinely scarce digital asset. The only scarce assets (commodities), of our world, are Gold and Bitcoin.

      • It's scarce, but it has no inherent use or worth - the value comes entirely from scarcity. That can work as a basis for a currency, but it also means there is a severe volatility issue. The price swings wildly in response to any rumors that might affect it, or sometimes for no reason at all.

        • Scarcity is valuable in a free market. The only reason Gold was money for most of the humankind, was because Gold was the scarcest commodity available (stock-to-flow ratio). Volatility is not a problem.
          https://mises.org/wire/bitcoin... [mises.org]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            Volatility is not a problem.

            I'm curious as to how a form of money can meet the "store of value" use case with as much volatility as Bitcoin has had.

        • How can you make that it has no value yet I could sell a Bitcoin for actual cash right now?

    • A shitcoin is anything promoted as a form of money whose supply is easy to increase. In other words, anything other than gold or bitcoin.

  • Bullshit, it's algorithms gone wild. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @02:51AM (#59561008)

    This is what happens when you have algorithms managing a huge amount of content: a slight tweak is made to the algorithm and a minor incident occurs. Yes, hundreds of videos may have been impacted but that's a rounding error in the vast scheme of things.

    On a side note, I do think it's funny that self-proclaimed Libertarian is crying foul over the actions of a corporation.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by WaffleMonster ( 969671 )

      On a side note, I do think it's funny that self-proclaimed Libertarian is crying foul over the actions of a corporation.

      Government and Corporate sponsored tyranny are two sides of the same coin.

      • Re:Bullshit, it's algorithms gone wild. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday December 27, 2019 @06:04AM (#59561244)

        Government and Corporate sponsored tyranny are two sides of the same coin.

        Hardly.

        Democratic governments are accountable to the people but corporations are dictatorships that are accountable only to governments. Minimizing government oversight of corporations makes corporations unaccountable.

        All this is to say that support for libertarianism demostrates a failure of imagination in regard to accountability and exploitation.

        • Democratic governments are accountable to the people but corporations are dictatorships that are accountable only to governments.

          This only works if those corporations can not manipulate government employees and politicians.

          Corporations can't vote, therefore they should have no legal right to lobbying the government; only private citizens and members of the local governments should be allowed to do this. The current capitalist corporate system is broken and breeds corruption. But how do the people kick government meddling corporations out of a government when they are so entrenched?

          • But how do the people kick government meddling corporations out of a government when they are so entrenched?

            In my estimation it's a painfully slow process that requires dedication to overcome. In short, enough people have to get fed up enough to care.

          • Corporations can't vote, therefore they should have no legal right to lobbying the government; only private citizens and members of the local governments should be allowed to do this.

            A corporation is an association of individuals. What's the practical difference between a corporation lobbying the government and the members of its board of directors and CxO-level executives lobbying the same government?

        • Democratic governments are accountable to the people

          Democratic governments are accountable to the people but corporations are dictatorships that are accountable only to governments.

          Minimizing government oversight of corporations makes corporations unaccountable.

          All this is to say that support for libertarianism demostrates a failure of imagination in regard to accountability and exploitation.

          You are cherry picking definitions to support your conclusions.

          All pure *****ism ideology is worthless on its face. No ideology works in the real world by itself and absolutely nobody who isn't completely crazy is pure anything.

          Definitions and beliefs are vast, vary on an individual basis and are open to interpretation... An extreme example some think libertarianism implies unchecked capitalism while others believe it implies denying the state the ability to convey any property rights at all.

          So yes you can

          • So yes you can run around and assert a specific formulation that is contradictory on its face and use that to hang "libertarians" as short sighted fools.. Indeed many are.

            That "specific formulation" is the most prevalent idealization of Libertarianism (amongst libertarians) and thus that which I am commenting on.

            • That "specific formulation" is the most prevalent idealization of Libertarianism (amongst libertarians) and thus that which I am commenting on.

              I completely disagree with this assessment.

      • in libertarianism there is no such thing as corporate tyranny, If a corporation runs amok the market will fix the problem. At lest that's the idea.

        • in libertarianism there is no such thing as corporate tyranny, If a corporation runs amok the market will fix the problem. At lest that's the idea.

          "Mama don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I sold my soul to the company store!"

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      This is what happens when you have algorithms managing a huge amount of content: a slight tweak is made to the algorithm and a minor incident occurs.

      "Meanwhile, others have been searching for a reason for the purge, finding YouTube's citing of "harmful and dangerous content" unsatisfactory." Algorithms reveal an unpopular truth, and moderately delusional, highly self-interested human beings reject it. Many uninterested humans look on with bemused smiles.

      Must be the algorithm's fault. Buy more bitcoin. T

  • Videos on the subject of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency?

    That must have been exciting.

  • What you thought it was only for history, US domestic politics, Germany, Spain, France, Communist China...
    The good censor knows what content is best for the ads.
    What is sinful...
    Wait for the next topics to enjoy some removal :)
  • Is what videos removal was this event supposed to cover up

  • This is what ALWAYS happens when too much power is aggregated into the hands of a few with zero accountability.

  • The only country in the world that outright dislikes crypto is China and now Youtube doesn't like crypto.

    Is it really so difficult to 1+1?

  • Once you accept a little censorship it will never stop. Now that they've gotten rid of the 'nazis' its just a runaway machine that still needs to feed and keeps targeting more and more until its basically nothing but corporate videos. TV 2.0 so to speak.

    • Everyone saw it coming. Those who said they didn't were lying to themselves.

    • People seem to think Youtube is a public service with guaranteed rights, I've got news for you...

      Same goes for all the social sites.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by jwymanm ( 627857 )
        Is it wrong that we can express our thoughts of Youtube before all of this censorship? Can we not express dislike and resentment towards pro censorship people without hearing from that same side that "IT'S A COMPANY THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT".. nobody is arguing that. They are arguing that they are starting to hate Youtube for going down this slippery slope. You same people are trying to fight Facebook to ban all kinds of fake ads. You let that happen and real content gets banned too. There is no light at

  • They pulled their payment application from Android.

    The best thing to do is think why they are doing this and plan to move off major US platforms. Often there are unofficial purges in tech and finance as multiple 'independent' corporations simultaneous start banning accounts and activities. It could be from the Federal Reserve, the DOJ, or possibly even some of their 3 letter investor agencies. Obama went after porn and gun dealers during his terms. Bush went after porn too earlier. Nothing illegal is g

    • Bitcoin is Sound Money. You just have to look at the Gresham's law (bad money drives out good). You will find out that nobody will spend Sound Money first!
  • Bitcoin: decentralized.
    Cryptos (!= Bitcoin): centralized.

    centralized: The whole system is equivalent to a database owned by a few people.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitco... [reddit.com]
    https://medium.com/@jimmysong/... [medium.com]
    https://www.whatbitcoindid.com... [whatbitcoindid.com]
  • Communist money!
  • Bitcoin is the only scarce digital asset
    Bitcoin will be scarcer than Gold (stock-to-flow ratio)
    Bitcoin is here forever

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitco... [reddit.com]
    https://medium.com/@jimmysong/... [medium.com]
    https://www.whatbitcoindid.com... [whatbitcoindid.com]
  • Such as a mandatory, clear explanation to content creators on why their video may infringe rules, exactly where it infringes the rules (i.e. is it in the description or at what time points within the video) and what needs to be done to make the video non-infringing and resubmit it.

    If they won't produce this basic information voluntarily then maybe we need a new law to compel them to do this.
    • They are a for profit corporation, complete with a Terms of Service... You are completely free to create your own better competitor.

      Why request entitlement when you can just walk away? It appears modern people are incapable of understanding or doing this.
  • likely due to regulatory clarity in the U.S. where it was found that bitcoin and ethereum are neither securities nor scams."

    This is written in a way that made me chuckle. Like a regulatory agency made a discovery, Indiana Jones style. Where did they look to find this? Classic. Anyway, these currencies along with paper money can still be used as part of a scam so people need to keep their guard up. The same people who needed a regulatory agency to hold their hands and tell them these weren't scams on thei
  • YouTube is a privately company that doesn't have to explain shit. It can do any arbitrary thing it wants, it's their platform. I understand it sucks, but you've hitched your wagon to a horse you don't control and are now bitching the horse has pitched you over a cliff.

    Yeah, it would be nice if they explained their actions, but they're under zero obligation to do that.

  • It's so bad that I see comments like - "I didn't search for this video and neither did you."
    Often absolute CRAP.

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