YouTube Bans Gun and Knife Videos In the UK

PatPending writes with a depressing excerpt from the UK's Metro: "The Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube has decided to introduce the ban [on weapons-related videos] for the UK only amid widespread unease about the increase in knife crime in the country. 'We recognise that there has been particular concern over videos in the UK that involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation, and this is one of the areas we are addressing,' a YouTube spokesperson said. 'I would like to see other internet service providers follow suit to reinforce our message that violence will not be tolerated either on the internet or in the real world,' she said."

Comments

'cause everyone knows

[ichbineinneuben]

Guns and knives don't kill people. Videos kill people.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[Anonymous Coward]

But one day, the media suddenly went into a feeding frenzy, police chiefs were trotting out their most ridiculous arrays or seized weapons (including a photo of a Star Trek replica weapon at one point) and Home Secretaries were trying to look all grave and serious talking about the knife epidemic sweeping our nation.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Brick Epidemic, the following Cobblestone Conundrum, and finally the Pointy-stick Problem.

Before it is all over you English won't be allowed possession of anything harder than mushy peas. I've no idea how you'll manage to cook them or mash them for that matter because anything sufficiently rigid enough to cook them in or mash them with will have been made illegal to possess.

Turing word: disarm
(Sometimes I swear they're added a lexical analyzer.)

Re:'cause everyone knows

[paganizer]

I'm not surprised you got modded "flamebait"; how DARE you criticize Obama!
Besides, he is definitely NOT planning on the same thing as England, he just wants to ban all semi-automatic weapons; you could still have your double-barrel shotguns, bolt action rifles and single action revolvers as long as you live outside of an Urban area. I guess a person could be concerned that he hasn't defined what an Urban area is...but still, shut up! he Gives us hope!

Re:'cause everyone knows

[dangitman]

OK, so where does your link show skyrocketing knife crimes correlating to a ban of knives? That's what the GP claimed.

Also, the Reason article you link to is from 2002, so is rather outdated. Violent crimes have dropped in the UK since then. And I'm not seeing the claimed correlation between UK gun laws and the incidence of violent crime. Again, linky: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6906554.stm

From your link on Obama, he states "As I said, I have never favored an all-out ban on handguns." You do realize that gun control and safety measures are different than banning guns, don't you?

The funny thing is that your own links rebut the argument you were trying to make with them!

Re:'cause everyone knows

[Bob The Magic Camel]

Because he's talking bollocks, that's why. There is more gun crime in New York, than there is crime in England. Our gun control works, and shootings are a rare event, when they happen it still makes the news. The reason guns aren't involved in crime within the UK: the police aren't armed, and the citizens aren't armed. If the police or citizens have guns, then the criminals know they need guns, a whole lot more people die. And it's rarely the criminals.

The knife ban was a response to inflating knife crime, not the cause of it. And US politics has absolutely nothing to do with this topic. He was simply going through a list of subjects that he knew could spark a flame war. The definition, if you will, of flamebait.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[kdemetter]

The problem with gun/knife control is that the real criminal will still be able to get knives or guns from the black market.

So it won't really stop crime . It may however , decrease the chance of accidents happing with guns.

But still , anything can be used as a lethal weapon in some way. You can do some serious damage with an umbrella if you know how.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[ultranova]

Don't be a hypocrite: Guns and knives are designed to kill people (before you start sneering about butter knives, pop guns, etc; just assume the words are defined sensibly as the lethal kind of offensive weapon). Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you.

I have never once in my life seen a knife that was designed to be a weapon. I have seen and own plenty which most certainly can be used as such, such as my meat cleaver. Of course, if I wanted to kill someone with a bladed weapon, I'd pick my axe, which should be able to split your skull just as easy as a log for my fireplace. And I regularly carry a sharp knife or scissors with pointed ends around with me, because I regularly find myself needing to cut things cleanly, or to simply clean the space below my fingernails.

Your assertion is ridiculous, and you are either a liar or an idiot to have made it.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[ultranova]

You can with a car, too. In fact, especially if you don't know how. Let's ban cars!

Or maybe we could require anyone who wants to operate a car to pass some kind of test and medical exam first. Regulate drivers, with something like a driving license, or something ?

Re:'cause everyone knows

[thetoadwarrior]

To be fair it's been "this month's hysteria" for awhile.

The UK does have a problem with kids stabbing each other but to be honest I think the news reporting on it makes it worse more than any Youtube video.

The news makes it seems like it's a bigger deal (if everyone is doing it then I should be) and it shows you a kid can make national headlines quite easily and people are more obsessed with fame these days.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[Anonymous Coward]

How did the English, who once ruled a vast empire, become such sissified little bitches? Ban guns, gun crime skyrockets. Ban knives, knife crime escalates.

Probably due to World Wars I and II, when the British faced huge odds, and the Americans refused to do anything but sell us ammunition at great cost. You know we only finished paying that debt off in the 1990's? Then the Americans finally joined in towards then end of both wars (after the Russians pulled out in WWI, and after Pearl Harbour in WWII). We were still hurting from WWI, when some really stupid field marshals decided that the best offence was the bodies of tens of thousands of young men being thrown into the path of German machine guns. In WWII, we came up with numerous technological advances like radar and computing that enabled us to actually get anywhere. The Americans in return call this the 1942-1945 (it started in 1939), don't know the difference between English and British, and refuse to include any British actors in war movies. After years of being in financial debt to America, we end up with the idiot Prime Minister Tony Blair, who despite having three times Dubbya's IQ acted like a puppy dog, and followed every lead. It was only a matter of time before we ended up following the whims of anyone sufficiently vocal. And we ended up joining the European Union, we've also followed every little instruction they've given (despite all the British people being against joining the EU, our politicians are just really weak willed). In the end, banning knives and guns won't solve crime, only increasing living conditions, improving education and health care, and giving young people something to do other than hang around in gangs. But hell, that's too complicated. Let's make knee jerk reactions, and just do what other people tell us.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[Ash Vince]

After living in Moss Side (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Side) since the late 1990s I reckon I have a unique perspective on Gun and Knife crime.
One of the reasons I am very glad that firearms are illegal in this country is it makes it a lot easier for the police to arrest people who wave them around.

A few years ago I had one pointed at me while I walked down the road. The guy wielding it had just attempted to mug someone and had been disturbed by a large group of people. He felt intimidated enough to jump into a car and bail and I was walking up the road paying too much attention to his car as it sped off. This particular gang of thugs had been very active in my area and had already appeared on the police radar. The police watched them, then waited until they were all together one evening in someones house and paid them a visit. All of the people present in that house then got a mandatory 5 year sentence for the revolver, automatic pistol and submachine gun that was found in the middle of the table they were all sat around.

If possessing a firearm in a private residence was legal this would be much harder as you would have to catch them in process of committing a crime. Even if you could you may not have enough evidence to convict them all if some were just keeping a look out for potential victims. The fact is that there is no reason to own a firearm in an inner city area except to use on other people and the courts here take a very dim view of this, even iff you try and argue self defence.

Even if I chose to carry a weapon (illegally) for my own protection there is a high likelyhood I would not get a chance to use it. I have only been mugged once in Moss Side and I did not see it coming at all. The first I knew was when I got punched to the back of the head and was jumped by 3 people. In this situation a firearm would have been useless since all 3 were at close range.

The fact is that having a large number of untrained people with guns is not useful for society. The US has a much higher murder rate then the UK even though they allow private firearm ownership. Look at the page linked below and compare the US with other countries that have a much more restrictive policy on gun ownership like those in Europe. I know the US doesnt top this list, but it does come a lot higher that other countries with a similar economic and political status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_murder_rate

Re:'cause everyone knows

[YrWrstNtmr]

Call me some kind of freak or something, but why the fuck would you want to own a gun?

1. I like target shooting
2. I like to collect finely made items
3. I live way the hell out in the country, and coyotes have been taking some of the smaller livestock
4. I like to and it is legal
5. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away

(These may or may not apply to me personally)

The idiots on Youtube? Bust em. They shouldn't be allowed near a squirtgun.
But a firearm in my hands is zero danger to you. You're in more danger from your neighbors car. Unless of course you try to do harm to me and mine.

Are you that paranoid?

Re:'cause everyone knows

[localman]

More guns means less crime in some areas. It means more crime in other areas. Generally speaking I support gun rights, but I wish people who do would admit that in very socially messed up places, giving more people guns does not improve things. If it did, then the gangs in LA would be at peace, right?

Guns as a deterrent depends on people valuing their lives, accepting mortality, but believing they can live longer if they're careful. If you're young enough, tough enough, dumb enough, or your life is shitty enough, that might not be the case, and thus you end up amplifying the mess by giving everyone a license to kill.

Guns don't cause violence, but they don't uniformly solve it either. And in some places they can exasperate it. When gun control people and gun rights people can agree on these facts, maybe a productive discussion can begin.

Cheers.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[shaitand]

'If it did, then the gangs in LA would be at peace, right?'

California and LA have some of the strictest gun laws in the country. The dangers of LA actually demonstrate why making it harder for honest citizens to possess guns is a bad idea.

'When gun control people and gun rights people can agree on these facts, maybe a productive discussion can begin.'

The second amendment exists to assure that no discussion is needed. In the United States at least, all gun control is illegal. Then again, the powers at be aren't likely to be concerned with the constitution since they have disarmed the citizenry.

Re:'cause everyone knows

[bogjobber]

I just have two counterpoints to make.

The first is that correlation does not equal causation. Sure, the US has very liberal firearm laws, but that's not really the most important factor. Take a look at Canada. They have similar gun laws, but a much lower murder rate. Brazil has more restrictive laws, but a much higher murder rate.

The largest factor for these high murder rates is poverty. The US is a very wealthy place but neighborhoods of extreme poverty exist in most cities. Generally speaking wealthy people don't kill each other, poor people do. Passing a law criminalizing guns wouldn't save many lives, fixing the root cause would.

Second, waving a gun at somebody is a crime in the US. You just can't go about brandishing firearms here. I'm not sure why you seem to think that would make it more difficult to catch criminals. In the US having a automatic weapon (usually) doesn't make you a criminal, so they don't need to be caught. They only need to be caught if they actually commit a crime.

Sometimes, self-regulation is scarier than outside

[compumike]

You know, I'm a bit torn here.

I think it's really oppressive when governments do things like telling a company that they'd have to do something like this (which the government did *not* do)... But it's almost scarier that they're doing it on their own initiative as a company. It's like one of those many situations in which someone will self-regulate to a stronger degree than is necessary just to present the appearance that outside regulation is not necessary. I certainly believe that Google/YouTube has the right to do this, but not necessarily that they should. So is it better that this came from within rather than from external forces?

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

UK is full of spineless pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

VIDEO of weapons scares them? Do they ban Schwarzenegger movies too?

Re:UK is full of spineless pussies

[rossz]

Uhm, it doesn't matter how much they raise or lower the taxes in California. There will always be a shortfall because non-discretionary spending is set (by law) at something like 103% of the state budget. Idiot people kept voting in mandatory money for their pet projects. 3% here, 5% there, and now we are required to spend more than will be available.

That is what Ahnold meant when he said the budget is inherently broken. Fixing it is proving impossible. No one is willing to cut even one dollar from anything. I'd like to see a (state) Constitutional amendment that penalizes the members of the assembly by not paying them for the periods when we don't have a budget. I think we're up to three months now. A 25% salary cut across the board for all assembly members sounds like a damn good idea. Alternately, we could just lynch a few of the bastards. Either way works for me.

As can be logically concluded...

[Kingrames]

Nobody knows how to use a knife until they first search for it on youtube.

'knife crime?'

[Anonymous Coward]

pure idiocy.

no one seems to realize that there is no such thing as "gun" or "knife" crime. there is crime, and the most convenient tool to carry it out with for threatening people and causing harm. where guns are available this is the tool, where guns are not it's knives or bludgeoning implements.

'knife crime' is going up because that's what is available.

i've gotten a hell of a lot of decent information about my firearm from youtube (if you keep it to videos featuring nationally recognized figures you can't get steered too wrong, like todd jarett).

this is just a plain stupid move on youtube's part.

Re:first post

[pjt33]

If you actually read the blog post you linked, you would find that 'vet' "has been used in Britain since the early years of the 20th century". Actually we use it more widely than the screening of a candidate for public office: I consider it a straight synonym for 'screen' in the sense of investigation and filtering. The BBC usage of vetting videos is one example; another would be the vetting of people who work in a security-conscious environment.

Re:Corporate responsibility

[piojo]

No, corporations should make money. They shouldn't be (by themselves) responsible to other "communities" than to their shareholders. The reason is that making money is why they do exist; to behave differently is expecting them to behave irrationally.

That's a narrow view. First of all, if the company isn't publicly traded, then its job is to do whatever the owners want, which is frequently more complex than "make as much money as possible". So if we're talking about publicly traded companies, wouldn't companies benefit from positive public opinion? The company's job isn't just to make money this year--it's to seek long term profitability, and that may involve "being responsible".

On another note, these companies, even the public ones, are run by their officers. Those officers are people with principles, whatever they be, and I would hope that these people follow their principles, as well as do their best to lead their company to success.

Re:Sometimes, self-regulation is scarier than outs

[pla]

the internet is NOT a ticket to do as you please.

True.

And if those videos commit a real crime (as in, an actual murder rather than some twit mangling a perfectly good side of beef), they at least provide evidence to use against the attacker.

If not? Well, I fail to see the problem with some twit mangling a side of beef, as long as he owns it.