Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has seemingly had enough of the Ripple and XRP scams that are plaguing popular video hosting platform YouTube. Garlinghouse has spoken out before about the scams on the site, but to no avail, and thus he has decided to take things a step further.
There have been scams where Garlinghouse himself has been impersonated to promote a fake airdrop scam. Despite YouTube’s crackdowns on crypto-related content, the platform has failed to crackdown a major scam. These scams have been quite basic in nature, demanding users send XRP to gain XRP, but at the same time damaging the reputation of Ripple and Garlinghouse.
Previously, Garlinghouse took to Twitter to air his frustration. In a series of tweets, he said YouTube was the “epicenter” of these scams, though he said other platforms like Instagram were also responsible.
Now, according to the lawsuit, it is claimed that the scammers have successfully defrauded “millions of XRP valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars” out of victims. It mentions at least one instance where a scammer apparently received $15,000 in XRP from a victim.
Reputational harm
But, it is not only the damage being done to these investors who are falling for the scam, but Garlinghouse is also well aware that these scams are damaging his reputation as well.
“Ripple has repeatedly demanded that YouTube take action to stop the Scam and prevent further harm. Yet YouTube refuses, even where the same scheme is replicated time and again on its platform. YouTube’s response has been woefully inadequate and incomplete. As a result, Ripple and Mr. Garlinghouse continues to suffer substantial reputational harm,” the lawsuit said.
This comes after Ripple asked for at least 25 accounts advertising these scams to be taken down by YouTube but they were not met with any success in this regard. In fact, the suit goes even deeper, taking apart Google’s part in this, the company that owns YouTube.
Ripple says the Google company assists the scammers share these ads, and profits off of this revenue: “YouTube, after it was informed about the Scam on countless occasions, sold and helped the scammers disseminate advertisements—so-called “video discovery ads”—to get more YouTube visitors to view and click on videos perpetuating the Scam.”
YouTube’s role in crypto
YouTube has not been much of a friend to the cryptocurrency space in recent times either, they have been at the heart of a number of account bans. This has been brought up and stirred the ire of the community meaning that they have had to retract their bans too.
