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“DIY handguns.”
“How to reload a gun.”
When prompts like this are searched, YouTube’s recently implemented firearm regulations should restrict the content. 20 videos of step-by-step tutorials on how to make a gun out of supplies like wood, pens and cardboard should not show up immediately. But they do — all of which are easily accessible to young children.
YouTube’s regulations, as of June 18, are really only there to make it seem like the company cares about gun safety, but they don’t actually do anything.
The preexisting regulations include a ban on direct sales of firearms through ads and sponsorships and prohibiting tutorials on how to make guns. The new additions filter showing how to remove firearm safety devices, restricting those under 18 from watching automatic or homemade weapons being used, preventing promotion of firearms and not running gun-related advertisements.
According to the policy, any content in violation will be removed. But apparently, the short captioned “New Plinker! Caught a good sale” doesn’t fall under the specific restriction on sponsorships or the sale of firearms. That just doesn’t make sense.
In addition to the prohibited content still being on the site, the age restriction is quite literally the easiest barrier to get around. As long as children aren’t logged into an account associated with their age, there’s absolutely nothing stopping kids from viewing the content.
Any eight-year-old who grew up playing “Fortnite” and shooting their friends with Nerf guns is used to violence, but that doesn’t mean they should be able to access firearm tutorials any minute of the day. Having videos age-restricted on kids accounts doesn’t prevent Avengers-obsessed six-year-olds from seeing a YouTube playlist with 37 videos titled “Homemade Guns & Weapons.”
It’s nearly impossible to effectively restrict content to people over the age of 18 and any kid with minimal knowledge of technology could figure out a way to get around restrictions. The only way to truly censor content is by banning it altogether. It’s truly just a facade for companies to shield themselves from public ridicule.
The policy would be much more practical if they just banned all gun content. Bodycam footage of a school shooting — gone. Guns exploding in people’s hands — bye bye. But, according to their policy, suggesting someone purchases a certain gun is far more dangerous than traumatizing the viewer.
Even if these regulations worked, there are endless other websites like Reddit and Quora making the information easily accessible. If someone needs information on how to remove a trigger lock, they’re most likely doing a general search instead of specifically on YouTube. Just restricting YouTube content does nothing.
“Guntubers,” or people who post gun-related content, like @GUNS-GDC — a channel with 392,000 subscribers and over 2,000 videos — has left YouTube because of the demonetizations and instead, posts on channels that support First and Second Amendment rights like Rumble and X.
According to NBC, many of the creators in the Guntube subsection have major partnership deals with firearm companies and profit off these harmful videos, whether they’re posted on YouTube or not. These regulations are just pushing gun content off YouTube to save the company’s image, not actually helping with gun safety.
Livestreams featuring someone even showcasing a firearm are also banned. So YouTube isn’t able to filter out all videos that violate the policy, but apparently they’re able to spot a firearm on a livestream and take it down real-time.
It’s especially unfortunate considering there are ways to restrict harmful gun related content such as screening all videos for violence paired with guns and preventing gun content from being uploaded in the first place.
Companies need to quit the censorship charade and actually get to the root of the problem.
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