Earlier this week, Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano had his podcast delisted (and subsequently relisted) by the Apple Podcast directory. Some suspect that this is in reaction to the podcast’s success, which after an episode with bitcoin evangelist Murad Mahmudov, was going viral. Pomliano’s podcast, which has over 300 reviews on iTunes, was so successful that it had sky-rocketed to the #4 most popular spot on iTunes, as shown by Jason A. Williams on Twitter:

 

top podcasts in the USA

 

After the success of this podcast episode, Pompliano’s podcast seemed to disappear from Apple’s directory. Pompliano, founder and managing partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets, tweeted that the podcast was “mysteriously” removed:

Some believe that Mahmudov’s defense for Bitcoin was so strong, that Apple felt threatened and needed to review the podcast before it could continue. Pompliano describes this episode as, “the ultimate argument for Bitcoin,” and it’s certainly popular. The episode has nearly three thousand views on YouTube, which did not remove the episode.

Whether this was done with censorious intent or not, it seems strange that Apple would remove Pompliano’s podcast. Podcasts have to receive Apple approval to be listed in their store, and Pomp’s “Off The Chain” podcast has been running on iTunes since August, indicating that it’s received prior certification.

After Pompliano’s podcast was removed from iTunes, the cryptocurrency space rallied behind Pomp and got his podcast re-listed on iTunes. There’s still no explanation for why it was removed, but at least the show is back on air:

 

 

Speaking on the issue, Pompliano wrote on his blog how this shows the dangers of censorship, an increasingly discussed issue all across social media:

 

It is more obvious than ever that centralized organizations and products present considerable counter-party risk…Regardless of the reason for Apple’s actions, an individual corporation was able to make a unilateral decision to censor content. They didn’t give us a warning or explanation.

Anthony Pompliano