No, it wasn’t only YouTube that removed crypto-related videos from its platform; Google is also on a crypto purge. A recent tweet by Ehtereum Dapp browser MetaMask reveals that Google play store suspended its android app citing “deceptive services”.
Google Rejects MetaMask’s Appeal
On December 26, MetaMask elaborates that their appeal was rejected as Google claims that MetaMask violated Google’s financial services policies. The tweet reads that Google cited “their policy that bans mining on mobile” but MetaMask denied Google’s claim.
In the last week, the MetaMask Android client was suspended by the Google Play App Store @googleplaydev. They cited their policy that bans mining on mobile, which we don't. Appeal rejected. #ProtectWeb3.https://t.co/rfP4EbOAqv!?zippy_activeEl=cryptocurrencies%23cryptocurrencies
— MetaMask (@metamask_io) December 26, 2019
However, the nub of the matter is that MetaMask is an Ethereum application browser and it essentially doesn’t offer mining activities. Taking up this stance, MetaMask writes;
“I very much hope that this was an honest mistake on the part of Google’s reviewers, but in combination with all the crypto YouTube bans, it definitely puts me at disease about how Google is engaging with decentralizing technologies. If people accept this behavior from a mobile monopoly like Google, we may not deserve something better.”
More so, the platform covers 264,000 monthly active users. It was the pioneer opera browser in 2018 which had introduced Web3 capability to their desktop browser and mobile app. Nevertheless, this isn’t the first of its kind for MetaMask, previously its chrome browser extension was temporarily delisted. The news came in a wake of YouTube’s hype of removing crypto videos from several popular Youtube channels.
Interestingly, the entire YouTue scene is slowly turning into a nightmare as its representative claimed that the removal was an error. YouTube officially announced it as follows;
Hey there, this was an error on our side during the review process – your video should be reinstated and strikes resolved. Let us know if you’re seeing otherwise!
These recent incidents with centralized platforms like Google and YouTube are directing users to find the most viable “decentralized-based approach”.