Youtube Algorithm Eats Another Innocent Bitcoin Bystander

On the same day a few Members of the United States Congress spoke against Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, the YouTube channel managed by Anthony Pompliano was mysteriously deleted before being brought back after a few hours. Pompliano is the founder of Morgan Creek Digital, an investment firm that is among the most bullish on Bitcoin and blockchain development in general; he is closely followed by more than more than a million YouTube users who are interested in his podcast, which mostly features financial news and commentary.

According to statements made by Pompliano about the ban, YouTube content moderators took issue with an interview he recently conducted. The interview in question featured an investor who applies an interesting approach to his day trading activities. For some reason, YouTube moderators felt that the interview condoned illegal or unethical investing practices. Pompliano was not really warned; his channel was deleted a couple of hours after the notification, but it only took another two hours for the channel to be reinstated.

YouTube users who follow Pompliano believe that he must have fallen victim to a faulty Google algorithm. The company has been using artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to check for questionable content such as videos posted by anti-vaccination groups, but this kind of AI technology is still under development, and it more than likely made a mistake.

A YouTube channel managed by Crypto-Markets was also banned on May 11, 2019. The Crypto-Markets channel consists of tutorials, videos, and educational content related to the world of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptos. The channel has hundreds of thousands of views per week. A YouTube partner program allows the upload of videos on YouTube that promote a specific brand or service; the YouTube guidelines specifically prohibit the promotion of “illegal content”. The fact that Crypto-Markets was unable to create a YouTube account or use its partners program for months may have been the root cause for the ban.

It is worth noting that, for some reason, both Bitcoin.com and Crypto-Markets have been able to use YouTube's partner program for quite some time. This suggests that some people (maybe Google employees) did not make the ban.