#ForkGoogle: The Crypto Community's Petition Against Google’s Censorship

Written by fatbat | Published 2020/03/13
Tech Story Tags: blockchain | google | youtube | censorship | blockchain-top-story | youtube-crypto-ban | google-crypto-ban | fork-google

TLDR Members of the crypto community have started pushing back against censorship by tech giant Google and its media subsidiary Youtube. The #ForkGoogle campaign is asking the US Senate to subpoena Google representatives to explain the company's actions against the community. The petition asks people to shift to other browsers and video sharing sites such as SteemIt and Brave. The petition hopes to bring more attention to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, as well as engage Google in a discussion. The people backing the campaign claimed that the tech giant is censoring crypto-related content in an “open act of war.”via the TL;DR App

Crypto community has started to fight against censorship with the #ForkGoogle campaign asking the US Senate to subpoena Google. Members of the crypto community have started pushing back against censorship by tech giant Google and its media subsidiary Youtube. The community claims that the tech giant is censoring Bitcoin and crypto-related news applications while it is also ‘de-platforming’ crypto content contributors on YouTube.

#ForkGoogle

The petition on Change.org is asking the United States Senate to subpoena Google representatives, asking them to explain the company’s actions against the crypto community. The petition is promoting the hashtag #ForkGoogle and is calling for a boycott of Google. The petition asks people to shift to other browsers and video sharing sites such as SteemIt and Brave.
The campaign hopes to bring more attention to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, as well as engage Google in a discussion. The petition hopes to convince Google to support cryptocurrencies.
The petition was inspired by Google’s recent moves that include removing various crypto-centric applications from Google Play. These include MetaMask and Bitcoin Blast.
Moreover, the company has stopped various crypto YouTubers from posting videos it deemed as inappropriate.
Although the YouTube ban has been reversed with many YouTubers reinstated, there are still reports of ongoing censorship on the platform. 
As per the #ForkGoogle campaign, the tech giant is censoring crypto-related content in an “open act of war.” The people backing the campaign claimed that the tech giant had waged campaigns of suppression against the crypto community for years, and now these recent moves only serve as open acts of war.
They claimed that Google was involved in the following activities:
  • Blocking cryptocurrency-related ad campaigns.
  • Deleting or limiting access to information pertaining to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies on YouTube. 
  • Pursuing a hostile information policy with regard to cryptocurrency projects. 
  • Removing apps of cryptocurrency-related companies and media resources from Google Play.

Published by HackerNoon on 2020/03/13