[4] Odysee was split into a separate corporate entity with its own CEO on October 1, 2021 as LBRY faced a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In response, LBRY's CEO began a public relations campaign to gather support among blockchain and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and to argue that the SEC had mislabeled LBC as a security.

[7] In 2017, LBRY, Inc. publicly archived 20,000 deleted UC Berkeley lectures from the university's YouTube channel after the US Department of Justice ruled that the videos violated the Americans with Disabilities Act due to a lack of transcription.

[27][28] spee.ch, a media hosting site built atop the LBRY protocol, was used by groups such as Deterrence Dispensed to upload 3D printed firearm blueprints.

Writing for The New York Times, Nathaniel Popper reported that many of the new users appeared to be supporters of former United States president Donald Trump and gun rights advocates who were suspended from YouTube.

[7] Robert Hackett and David Z. Morris writing for Fortune attributed the increased interest in LBRY and other blockchain-based platforms to the choice by Twitter and other popular social networks to ban Trump and many others after the 2021 United States Capitol attack.

[19] A May 2021 report by The Guardian found "scores of extremist videos" on the Odysee platform that promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories, glorified Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, shared COVID-19 misinformation, and depicted meetings and rallies by extremist groups including the white nationalist and antisemitic National Justice party and the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement.

[30] Megan Squire, a computer scientist and researcher of right-wing political extremism, described challenges faced by blockchains such as LBRY and the social networks built atop them: "As a technology it is very cool, but you can't just sit there and be a Pollyanna and think that all information will be free ...

[7][4] Todd Bookman writing for New Hampshire Public Radio described Odysee's approach to content moderation as "no censorship, no-deplatforming, no matter what users say".

Champe Barton writing for The Trace has said Kauffman "signal[ed] his support" for the distribution of such blueprints by sharing them on his personal Twitter account.