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Bankless Crypto Channel Banned From YouTube
One of the most popular Ethereum-focused newsletters and podcasts said its account was terminated without warning or justification.
Bankless, which claimed 150,000 subscribers to its Ethereum-focused newsletter and podcast, channel on YouTube, said it had been banned from the social media platform without warning or justification. YouTube restored service a few hours later.
- The channel, which boasted more than 10,000 hours of content and featured people as notable as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, said in a tweet its account had been terminated.
🚨🚨🚨
— Bankless (@BanklessHQ) May 8, 2022
The Bankless @YouTube account 'has been terminated'
🪓
No warning.
No notification.
No justification
150,000 subs
10,000+ hours of content
Hey @YouTube, our community would like a word!
RETWEET to let YouTube hear you: It’s not okay to ban crypto content pic.twitter.com/MJQ4MGwtYD
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
- Attempting to click through to the channel yields a notice saying "This page isn't available."
- Bankless isn't alone. Other educational web 3 crypto accounts such as Gabriel Haines.eth and the Optimism Collective were shut down as well.
It seems that @YouTube (@Google) has banned educational web3 accounts on YouTube including @BanklessHQ, @gabrielhaines and @optimismPBC deleting their content and ability to share information with their audiences. We all need to switch to web3 social to keep our freedom of speech
— Stani.lens (🌿,👻) (@StaniKulechov) May 8, 2022
- Officials from YouTube weren't immediately available to comment; commentators on Bankless's Twitter thread made comments like "Wow guys I finally get why we need [Web 3]" which would prevent an organization from shutting down a channel through decentralization.
- The removal of the Bankless channel may not be permanent or a signal that YouTube found anything objectionable in the channel's content. The social media giant has shut down other channels in the past without explanation only to reinstate them at a later time, again without explanation.
- On Monday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wrote in a tweet that the company had "clearly made a mistake" in banning the Bankless channel.
- Wojcicki added: "Love the level of conversation happening around crypto on YouTube - very interested in web3 and the role we can play in the topic."
Read more: Lessons from CoinDesk's One-Day YouTube Shutdown
Update: Monday, May 9, 2022, 15:20 UTC: Added information that YouTube restored the Bankless channel.
Update: Tuesday, May 10, 2022, 9:02 UTC: Added comments from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki on reason behind suspension.
Kevin Reynolds
Kevin Reynolds is editor-in-chief at CoinDesk. Prior to joining the company in mid-2020, Reynolds spent 23 years at Bloomberg, where he won two CEO awards for moving the needle for the entire company and established himself as one of the world's leading experts in real-time financial news. In addition to having done almost every job in the newsroom, Reynolds built, scaled and ran products for every asset class, including First Word, a 250-person global news/analysis service for professional clients, as well as Bloomberg's Speed Desk and the training program that all Bloomberg News hires worldwide are required to take. He also turned around several other operations, including the company's flash headlines desk and was instrumental in the turnaround of Bloomberg's BGOV unit. He shares a patent for a content management system he helped design, is a Certified Scrum Master, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He owns bitcoin, ether, polygon and solana.
Stephen Alpher
Stephen is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.
Elaine Ramirez
Elaine is the head of audience development. She started covering blockchain as a tech and business journalist in South Korea, where she reported on the Ethereum and ICO booms, crypto regulation and the emergence of blockchain entrepreneurship for Forbes, Bloomberg and other global outlets. Elaine studied journalism and economics at New York University and media innovation and entrepreneurship at Northwestern University.
