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The most popular video-sharing platform, YouTube, has discontinued the channel of Ripple CTO – David Schwartz for impersonation. Interestingly, the suspension comes only a week after Ripple officially filed a lawsuit against the Google-owned platform.
YouTube Strikes Against Ripple CTO
YouTube is no stranger to suspending and deleting accounts related to the cryptocurrency industry. Aside from banning digital asset content creators, it seems that the platform is escalating the situation further by doing the same to Ripple CTO, David Schwartz:
Weirdly, @YouTube just decided to suspend my channel (SJoelKatz) for impersonation. I wonder who they think I was impersonating.
— David Schwartz (@JoelKatz) April 29, 2020
The notice Schwartz received said, “please be aware that you are prohibited from accessing, possessing, or creating any other YouTube accounts.”
What’s interesting in this case is the fact that the firm Schwartz works for recently filed a lawsuit against the giant platform. As CryptoPotato reported a week ago, the company behind the third-largest cryptocurrency XRP, wanted to hold YouTube accountable for not taking the necessary action to confront fraudsters and scammers running deceitful activities on its website.
More specifically, and somewhat ironically, Ripple’s lawsuit emphasized on the increased number of giveaway scams and false impersonations appearing on YouTube.
The document stated that Ripple’s name had been involved in numerous such activities. It resulted in the firm hiring external cybersecurity and digital threat intelligence vendor to help to address the issues.
Is YouTube Against Everything Crypto?
The first mass wave of bans, warnings, and video removals started in December 2019 when the giant platform began targeting several of the most well-known cryptocurrency content creators.
A few days later, it seemed as YouTube has sorted out the issues. A response to one affected user claimed that it was all one big misunderstanding, and most of the content was restored.
Since then, however, the clampdown on digital asset-related materials emerges occasionally with new waves. YouTube still reasons that the removed videos and deleted accounts are “harmful and dangerous.”
Ultimately, after months of going through similar stages, the so-called “Crypto Purge” appears to be a result of YouTube’s inability to tell the difference between legitimate uploads and scams.
Nevertheless, while the platform’s actions against some cryptocurrency content creators might be an issue on its end, the suspension of Ripple CTO’s account raises different questions. Was he indeed impersonating someone as the notice implied, or is this somehow related to the recent lawsuit?