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YouTube expands firearms restrictions, more gun videos to be banned
"Some gun-related channels are already feeling the heat."
YouTube is placing more restrictions on weapons-related videos, focusing on guns with new, forthcoming policy changes. According to a Bloomberg report, YouTube intends to ban videos that "promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories," including bump stocks, beginning this April. The new policy will also prohibit instructional videos that detail how to build firearms.
These restrictions come over a month after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida and just a few days before the March for Our Lives rally organized by the student survivors of the Parkland shooting. YouTube took similar action after the Las Vegas shooting last year by banning gun-modification tutorials.
"We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies," a YouTube representative said in a statement to Bloomberg. "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."
[...] While some may see YouTube's new firearms policy as ambiguously worded, it's the forthcoming implementation that will get the most reaction from firearms channels. Plenty of YouTubers have seen their content demonetized or removed due to the way YouTube's algorithm and moderators filter out potentially offensive content and content that goes against Community Guidelines. It's possible that gun-related videos that do not explicitly violate the new rules will get caught up in the first rounds of YouTube's upcoming purge.
[...] With the upcoming policy, YouTube will join the bevy of other companies, including Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart, that have instituted new restrictions on the promotion or sales of firearms in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
Gun videos migrate to porn sites as YouTube cracks down
THERE is a bunch of unusual videos turning up on porn streaming sites as America's gun advocates cry foul.
YOUTUBE is going to start banning videos related to the sale or manufacture of guns next month, so as a way to make up for it, firearm aficionados are jumping ship to Pornhub — where they can post pretty much any clip they'd like.
Gun videos migrate to porn sites as YouTube cracks down
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:21PM
The official policy page is here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7667605?hl=en [google.com]
There is a link at the bottom asking if it was helpful or not. Say no, and they allow free text responses.
Mine follows, in case anyone else wants to borrow/tweak:
Revisit this policy, which is poorly thought out and will catch a great deal of completely benign, excellent content. At the bare minimum you must more strongly limit this policy. As just one example, a person who makes a match grade trigger kit modification for a competition rifle would have all of their content explaining their product eliminated - because they are advocating for direct sales and 'may not be limited to' is in fact no limit whatsoever. Another very dangerous turn of phrase is 'conversion kit' - many people use a conversion kit to turn a higher caliber firearm into a .22lr version which is much less expensive to use and learn with. Sig Sauer makes a factory .22lr conversion kit for their P938 pistol. Apparently all videos related to this will be taken down - for no reason.
Moving on, gunsmithing is an incredibly longstanding tradition, older than the United States. It has ALWAYS been legal for any private individual to manufacture a firearm for their own personal use. They cannot sell or otherwise transfer this without the ATF being all over their case, but this is not and has in fact NEVER been illegal. 'Manufacturing a firearm' is incredibly vague and could extend to include videos well beyond receivers, to include upgrades, modifications, scope mounting, accessory installation, etc. Banning these videos, from trained and professional gunsmiths, actually makes the public markedly LESS safe because there is less, less specific, or poorer information available.
"High capacity" is arbitrarily defined at 30. Just remove this completely; if and when the US legislature revisits magazine capacities - which did not work at all when the AWB was in force (Columbine) - consider revisiting it. At the current time literally all of the evidence is solidly against this having any effect. Furthermore, a belt carrying more than 30 rounds is hilariously easy to make - just put a couple of so-called low-capacity magazine holders on there. Even more than the magazine, the belt needs to be removed.
Links to sites like, for example, Gunbroker.com are not problematic. Literally all of the business on these sites is required to be done through FFL transfers. This really shows the ignorance of people who are writing these policies up; background checks are already functionally universal (and wouldn't have helped in the Florida shooter's case in any event, his rifle was properly acquired).
In summary, take this policy back to the drawing board and, if it needs to exist at all, make it very, very specific so people can continue to use your hosting platform without fear of expansion/re-interpretation without warning. Make it crystal clear where the lines are. Make sure your lines don't cross out legal activities (like personal gunsmithing); nobody comes here for political activism. You're the de facto standard, but that could change stupendously quickly. Lastly, you simply must eliminate all weasel wording like 'may not be limited to'; if required revise the policy later instead.