The social media behemoths — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google — are as much responsible for perpetuating the political, social, and cultural divides in America as the Left-wing Democrat Party they are beholden to.
In addition to the so-called “Mainstream” press, the social media platforms have become anti-constitutional authoritarians, deciding which people and groups ‘deserve’ to enjoy all of their speech and expression rights under the First Amendment, and which ones don’t.
As reported by The Firearm Blog, YouTube has implemented additional restrictions on displays of gun content, including the permanent demonetization of videos posted by smaller firearms-related channels reliant on viewership income.
“…[N]ow it seems YouTube will become the arbiter of what constitutes safe gun handling [from their offices in San Francisco],” wrote James Reeves of The Firearm Blog.
A previous story at the site noted that several operators of gun-related channels on YouTube were notified that their content has been deemed ‘unsafe’ and, thus, ‘dangerous,’ and so it is no longer eligible for monetization:
Several guntubers woke up to unwelcome but possibly-not-unexpected emails from YouTube on Wednesday morning, wherein YouTube told these creators that their channels were going to be permanently demonetized.
Many YouTube users who “consume” a great deal of firearms-related content on the platform have known for some time that the Left-wing video site owned by Google hasn’t been very accommodating to gun-related material.
“The increasing scrutiny of gun channels began around the 2016 election cycle, when YouTube faced a backlash from advertisers who took issue with their ads being run on certain YouTube channels,” The Firearm Blog noted. The platform took a financial hit from the objections and adjusted their ad policies accordingly.
Now, one may think that an advertiser should have the right to refuse to air ads within content the company finds objectionable — and that’s absolutely correct. But when ‘good business practices’ extend into blatant acts of arbitrary censorship, as it has with a number of social media platforms, that’s something else entirely — especially when content creators have otherwise been in compliance with platform rules (this then becomes a potential antitrust issue).
Now, video creators have a real alternative to censor-happy YouTube
Also, Reeves notes, none of the advertiser complaints made to YouTube in 2016 were linked to gun-related content and gun channels. Still, the financial hit YouTube took led the company to develop content categories so advertisers could pick and choose which channel could air their ads. (Related: If Cory Booker or Eric Swalwell ever get their way and try to confiscate guns, they’ll be facing a minimum of 650,000 ticked off American rebels.)
“That’s when guntubers began to see the ominous yellow dollar sign show up next to their videos,” Reeves wrote, which indicates that they have been demonetized. The result: Decreased revenue, certainly, but also decreased traffic.
Reeves said that at first the demonetization was enforced through loosely-defined guidelines regarding “offensive content” that didn’t specifically name firearms. However, video giant eventually modified its content guidelines a number of times to make them more specific.
Most recently, “YouTube’s detailed guidelines prohibited the monetization of videos showing how to reload ammunition, and they even forbid monetizing videos that show a magazine capable of holding more than 30 rounds of ammunition,” Reeves noted.
This is only going to get worse. In fact, conservatives and constitutionalists increasingly believe there is just one way to get around this kind of blatant censorship of legal, lawful content, and that’s to simply find another video platform.
Like Brighteon (click here). A pro-liberty, pro-freedom platform that doesn’t ban, censor, or deplatform anyone who is simply trying to reach an audience (and not advocate violence, illegal activity, war, etc.), Brighteon developer Mike Adams and his team are just about finished with upgrades that will improve service and make the platform “censorship-resistant” to upstream infrastructure providers.
Read more about the upgrades here.
Learn more about anti-gun censorship by the tech giants at Guns.news and TechGiants.news.
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