YouTube is an easy place to start, but it's very difficult to build up an audience. For those who have succeeded, I applaud you. I know it's not easy, and you've nailed it.
That especially includes so-called guntubers, who also get to enjoy YouTube jerking them around yet again.
The truth is that there's a long history of the platform bending the knee to anti-gunners who engage in tons of fearmongering to marginalize the content that millions of Americans want to see. Pretty much every guntuber has a story of YouTube yanking monetization from a video over nothing, throttling traffic for content, etc.
And now it's getting worse. Cam covered this a couple of weeks back, where the rules are now set up to put guntubers in a difficult position. Don't disclose a relationship with a firearm company and get hammered by the FTC. Do it, and possibly see your video deleted.
The NSSF offered up its take on what's really at stake here.
Social media platforms have restricted content from competitive shooters, firearm educators and other lawful voices. NSSF previously highlighted actions involving Paralympic medalist McKenna Geer, USA Shooting athletes, the West Point Rifle Team and popular firearm education channel Hickok45.
The problem is real enough that NSSF held a webinar earlier this year specifically addressing how firearm retailers, ranges and manufacturers can navigate shifting social media rules that can result in content being demonetized, struck or removed.
YouTube already restricts content facilitating firearm sales and certain manufacturing or modification instructions. Enforcing rules against prohibited conduct is one thing. Treating a lawful product review as impermissible because of a disclosed manufacturer relationship is another.
The timing of YouTube’s policy change and the report from The Smoking Gun — an online so-called “newsroom” that is “committed to exposing the gun industry’s role in our gun violence epidemic today through news stories, in-depth research, profiles on firearm manufacturers and suppliers, data, and more” — warrants scrutiny, including Everytown’s role, to say the least. The immediate consequences need no speculation: Creators face greater uncertainty over how to disclose commercial relationships; manufacturers face new questions about providing products for evaluation; and viewers risk losing access to beneficial and quality independent product coverage.
Transparency should clarify who paid for or supplied a product. It should not erase the distinction between a candid review and an advertisement.
Something touched on here is the double standard at work. The Smoking Gun gets taken seriously despite its blatant bias and ties with a notorious gun control organization, but a guntuber's relationship with a gun manufacturer is somehow the problem?
Look, if I see a review, I want to know that it's an honest review versus a commercial. What I don't want is for YouTube to decide what I can and can't watch so long as no laws are being broken.
And let's understand that while YouTube might not be a true monopoly simply because sites like Rumble exist, they're a practical monopoly in every way that matters otherwise. A story I heard thirdhand was a well-known YouTuber responding to someone saying he should be on Rumble instead of YouTube. His rebuttal was that he was on Rumble, but the fact that the person didn't know that was why he was still on YouTube.
I'm a free market guy. I don't like government intervention in the free market.
However, the way YouTube does this stuff stinks. They're targeting lawful behavior, and they're cracking down on a group that has done nothing wrong, only angered a bunch of very loud, petulant children. And how did they anger said loud, petulant children?
By existing. Nothing more.
And that's why YouTube should never have bent the knee, but they did.
I love me some Pepperbox where they don't remotely crack down on gun content, that's not exactly a platform anyone can access, and we've already discussed the very real problems with Rumble — seriously, I have more views on an interview with Cam that has nothing to do with guns, but chickens, on YouTube on a brand new channel, than lifetime on Rumble — so the problem YouTube needs to consider whether or not they want to invite regulation, because I don't think they'll enjoy that.
The upside would be that regulation would be a shield they could hide behind when Everytown comes demanding. Let's face it, they're cowards anyway, so they'll need something to hide behind.
