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.

Comments

CatTube

[sycodon]

Won't be long before all they have are cat videos.

Re:CatTube

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably going to have the opposite effect of what the idiots at Google believe. Where once someone might have turned to a video on YouTube to learn about gun safety, disassembly/assembly, cleaning, etc. they will now attempt it with no knowledge and end up hurting themselves or others. Way to go Google.

On the positive side, with Google turning YouTube into a children's only web site, it's the perfect opportunity for someone else to end Google's monopoly on user driven video sites.

Fine

[BlueStrat]

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

Re:One sided debate

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up and bake the damn cake!

That's odd

[admin7087]

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.

Not sure why you brought up free speech

[SuperKendall]

Itâ(TM)s not a free-speech violation. That doesnâ(TM)t mean itâ(TM)s not censorship.

Re:One sided debate

[BlazeMiskulin]

Jesus fucking Christ people. Free speech only keeps the government from impeding your speech.

Incorrect.

There are 3 aspects which you are conflating: Free speech, censorship, and the First Amendment. Only the last is limited to the United States government.

"Free speech" is a concept--a recognized human right in more countries than just the United States. Free speech can be constrained by anyone from a government down to a bully with a baseball bat and an a violent agenda.

"Censorship" can be--and IS-- practiced by governments, employers, media outlets, schools, and more.

"The First Amendment" is a specific part of the US Constitution which constrains the US government from impeding your human right of Free Speech.

Gab tv just went online

[Okian Warrior]

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.)

Re:Gab tv just went online

[lgw]

Can you explain why it's so important to be on YouTube and Gab isn't good enough?

Market share. Why were people upset with Microsoft's shenanigans, when Linux was always an option?

Ha! Not a car analogy for once.

Google Culture

[labnet]

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.

Might not be his fault

[Okian Warrior]

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.

Business Opportunity.

[jcr]

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