Posted on 03/21/2018 7:05:56 PM PDT by Mount Athos
YouTube is entering the gun control debate with a new ban on videos which demo firearms or link to websites selling firearms or firearm accessories. The move to ban firearm demos dovetails with the media platform’s desire to “prohibit videos with instructions on how to assemble firearms.”
Ironically, guns built at home have not been part of the mass public attacks that have drawn national attention over the past months and years, but guns acquired at retail via background checks have been.
Bloomberg reports that YouTube issued a statement in coordination with new prohibitions, saying, “We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies. 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 (NSSF) said YouTube’s policy shift is “worrisome.” They fear that “educational content” may now be lumped in with prohibited firearm videos and everything lost together.
NSSF observed:
We suspect it will be interpreted to block much more content than the stated goal of firearms and certain accessory sales. 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The policy begins in April. Please see number 56.
Yep. Facebook and YouTube and Twitter are monopolies and as such Trump needs to direct the DOJ to start enforcement actions against them if they’re going to engage in censorship like this.
The funny thing is many of the very people who would normally be sympathetic to corporations against overregulation by government are gun owners and many more are on the right - the very targets of their censorship. As such, most of us would just sit back and watch with great satisfaction.
Well done!
They are banning gun safety videos?
Thank you. I am very pleased with my analogy and phrasing on this point. I've been trying to spread that concept every time the topic comes up.
We cannot have a system where there are second class citizens, and I don't care who owns the equipment that carries the traffic. This Nation protected the right of freedom of speech to prevent those in power from controlling public speech, and the danger to the Republic is the same if it be accomplished by private actors as if it were done by the government.
This Republic relies on correct information getting out to the public so they can make rational decisions in their voting. If you control information, you defeat the very system of a Republic.
Give them time, the policy just took effect.
Would you consequently say that Free Republic should be forced to print posts from liberals?
If they were controlling 95% of all the communications in this format, I would say "Yes, Absolutely."
Google is a monster that can actually control public speech. They can have a significant impact on elections, and if you've studied your history, you know the reason why the founders included "Freedom of Speech" as a necessary right was to prevent the government (or one of it's agents) from stopping speech critical of the government.
The intent was that the voters be informed, and if you prevent the voters from being informed, you have tampered with the Democratic process.
So long as Free Republic has only a small percentage of all communications, they should be left alone to do as they like, but when they become so large they become a threat to our form of government, it is time to force them to carry dissenting opinions as well.
Agree. They should ban all advertisements and references to movies, TV shows and video games which glamorize killing.
...and if you’ve studied your history, you know the reason why the founders included “Freedom of Speech” as a necessary right was to prevent the government (or one of it’s agents) from stopping speech critical of the government.
............................................
Leaving aside the condescension, we have the right to free speech, we don’t have the right too force a non government agency to provide a venue for that speech.
If it is a threat to the nation, and believe me, Censorship is a MAJOR THREAT to the nation, then yes, we absolutely have a right to *FORCE* and I mean with a capital "*F*", the owners of communications systems to carry traffic that is necessary to the best interest of the nation.
The first rule of a system of government is to protect it's own existence. A government that cannot protect it's own existence will not long endure.
Why anyone would indulge a communist propaganda system to control speech in this nation on the basis that they "own the equipment" is simply insanity to me.
That equipment is a weapon, and it is a greater threat to our nation than is howitzers lined up on the horizon.
Full30 has potential, but as long as they limit contributions to a few contributors by invitation only, it won’t be a substitute.
One commentor there at full30 had a brilliant but simple idea (that I wish I had thought of first): to get the NRA to start up a ‘guntube.com’.
That would be an ideal solution.... Although I doubt that they would want to both cut into their profits for a year (it could easily be self-funding or even profitable after a year or so) OR to give us mere peasants a platform.
Maybe the GOA,( Gun Owners of America) could fund it. They don’t have as much money as the NRA, but they are more on our side than the NRA.
(Again, IMHO)
And Rap / Hip hop songs and videos.
He's still there! And so are his videos.
Yankee Marshal is still there as well.
Nutnfancy is there too.
What gives with this report? Did it jump the gun?
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