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YouTube Bans Firearms Demo Videos, Entering the Gun Control Debate (bloomberg.com)
YouTube has quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate. "YouTube will ban videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, including bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to fire faster," reports Bloomberg. "Additionally, YouTube said it will prohibit videos with instructions on how to assemble firearms." From the report: "We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies," a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. "While we've long prohibited the sale of firearms, we recently notified creators of updates we will be making around content promoting the sale or manufacture of firearms and their accessories." The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry lobbying group, called YouTube's new policy "worrisome." "We suspect it will be interpreted to block much more content than the stated goal of firearms and certain accessory sales," the foundation said in a statement. "We see the real potential for the blocking of educational content that serves instructional, skill-building and even safety purposes. Much like Facebook, YouTube now acts as a virtual public square. The exercise of what amounts to censorship, then, can legitimately be viewed as the stifling of commercial free speech."
The new YouTube policies will be enforced starting in April, but at least two video bloggers have already been affected. Spike's Tactical, a firearms company, said in a post on Facebook that it was suspended from YouTube due to "repeated or severe violations" of the video platform's guidelines.
The new YouTube policies will be enforced starting in April, but at least two video bloggers have already been affected. Spike's Tactical, a firearms company, said in a post on Facebook that it was suspended from YouTube due to "repeated or severe violations" of the video platform's guidelines.
Won't be long before all they have are cat videos.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Enters U.S. gun-control debate by censoring. Nice!
Then YouTube can do without my views (or content).
I know that my dropping YT doesn't matter much, but I won't feel like I'm supporting censorship,even if they have the right on their platform.
Time also to change my default search engine from Google to something else even if it's not as good.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'm a run-off-the-mill educated European left-wing liberal and nevertheless occasionally like watching US firearms videos like FPSRussia shooting bazookas at Zombie clown figures. Don't get me wrong, I am for fairly strict gun control and think many US states would fare better with stricter control and better background checks, but I don't quite see the point of that video restriction, to be honest. It does nothing for tighter gun control and I fail to see any beneficial effect of restricting hobby videos and (legal!) sales information. Makes no sense to me.
Could a new startup PLEASE dethrone YouTube. There are a million video sites but none of them does social networking and subscriptions quiet like YouTube. Youtube has way way too much social networking tools to users and content creators actually and it is their key advantage. Now that they are a household name, their brand alone is an advantage as well but not for long if they keep trying to censor the creators or make them walk on egg shells knowing a small little slip of the tongue could cause your videos and even your channel to get banned or demonetized (and you being essentially fired from your job). That is another option, YouTube Creators could create a Union to give them at least a tiny bit of strength against this overfed and power hungry beast that wants to dictate you their terms or face your entire livelihood destroyed.
Itâ(TM)s not a free-speech violation. That doesnâ(TM)t mean itâ(TM)s not censorship.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's as if they're saying, "Let's at least make a political statement on gun control," statement.
Also, from the tin foil hat department - How far will this go back in Youtube's HQ? While it sounds crazy today, what will the Youtube owners say about working on cars in a decade, when many people are riding around in autonomous cars? What will happen when a "terrorist" uses an old-fashioned car with a steering wheel, gas pedal, and no autobraking system to mow down dozens of people in a random city? Is Youtube going to remove auto mechanic HOWTO videos so we can't modify (or even fix) our own cars? Slippery slope 101.
And just today, Gab TV went online.
Seriously - why do these companies think they need to direct our thoughts and actions into "acceptable" channels?
There's an interesting set of "public forum" lawsuits that discuss this. Especially this one from CA.
Basically, if a system becomes the equivalent of the town bulletin board, then freedom of speech must be enforced.
(I recall a man suing a mall for taking down his (otherwise legal) posts on *their* builletin board. They claimed that their board was private property, and could decide what was allowed. He claimed that the mall replaced the supermarket which used to be there, and the mall bulletin-board now became the public forum that used to be the supermarket bulletin-board.)
I think the dividing line would have to be public access. If you *pay* someone to write (for example) articles for your paper, then you can control what they write and choose to publish or not. If you *let anyone* post commentary or opinions, then first amendment must be enforced.
(Oh and if you disagree, can you please show why companies don't need to enforce freedom of speech, while bakeries must make custom gay wedding cakes when they don't want to? They're both 1st amendment issues.)
Gun nuts will start bleating about the Constitution. Guess what, you AREN'T part of a well regulated militia.
First.... This isn't a constitutional issue at all, not even the first amendment is involved. U-Tube can refuse to host any material they find objectionable. I don't agree that such videos are objectionable, but I'm not going to complain they don't have the right to refuse them.
Second... the "Well Regulated Militia" phrase has not been interpreted by the courts as you'd like. The Right to bear arms is an "individual right" as interpreted by the Supreme Court, which means it is a right enjoyed by the individual and doesn't require you to be a member of any group or engage in any specific activity. One gets to bear arms (i.e. own and carry firearms) and this right cannot be infringed by the 2nd amendment.
I can forgive that you don't understand this given the 2008 Heller decision is what clearly established the individual right to bear arms. But do please try to keep up, it's been 9 years now.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Google is increasingly made up of left leaning philosophies.
Their logic is: kids are mass murdering with guns: lets stop teaching them how to use them lest we are complicit.
The logic is flawed because they really should be asking:
Why are so many young men so angry at the world that they want to wreak destruction on it. That is the right question, because there are societies with lots of guns (eg switzerland) that don't have young men shooting up schools. Guns are a symptom of a deeper cultural problem.
The left are trying to divide everyone into social groups that are victims. This doesn't help angry young men and only makes the problem worse especially white ones who are told they are the new scum of the earth.
The message needs to be: the world is chaos, and your job is to reduce the chaos through sacrifice. Find something in the world that needs fixing, that makes the world a better place, and strive as hard as you can to fix it. Sacrifice means putting off todays gratification for a better future. A surgeon spends 15 years of hard work before he is an expert saving lives and creating order.
So while I get what youtube is trying to do, I think it will be entirely ineffective.
46137
I can forgive that you don't understand this given the 2008 Heller decision is what clearly established the individual right to bear arms. But do please try to keep up, it's been 9 years now.
It might not be his fault.
Note that some school textbooks show the amendment rewritten to promote that view.
I have to wonder, with this and all the one-sided bans and anti-right policies, if we really are at the start of a civil war.
I saw that one well-known gun vlogger has started posting his videos on PornHub. If PH plays their cards right, they could launch a site with more general branding "vidhub"? "AnythingGoesTube"? and take a significant chunk of the traffic that YT gets today.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
OK, it's stupid. YouTube is really going to pay dearly for this. Taking any stance on any issue is not what YouTube should be doing. BUT! They're well within their right to shoot themselves in the foot.
As a side note, opening this can of worms is going to be a complete nightmare for Google. Once you take one stance on one issue, now you're going to be expected take more stances on issues someone feels is critical. Also, now that you've put your card on the table, refusing to take a stance when demanded to will always result in the most negative position being assumed. Sorry about that Google, but you have my sympathy.
They, we, and everyone would have been much better off if YouTube kept silent and just said, 'We store and redistribute our user's videos, nothing more. Each user is responsible for the content of their videos.'
According to the US Constitution, American citizens can be trusted with weapons. There is no — and there can not be — any higher authority deciding, whether to allow a particular person to exercise their right and any law to the contrary is just that, unconstitutional.
BTW, no one seeks to "arm people" — just allow people to arm themselves.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Remember supporting the freedom of information even though "the bad guys" might also find it?
Remember when ISPs and server operators did it we called it censorship just as if the government had done it?
Remember when geeks showed finesse rather than imposed their will with a hammer?
Anyone remember?
Nah?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Define terms first.
Then debate.
Debate class 101.
Thank you for defining terms more precisely for this debate.
Who am I kidding? This is Slashdot! ;-)