YouTube is defending pulling live streamed footage of the Virginia gun rights rally saying it’s in-line with its policies. The company halted personal live streams as well as professional media live streams throughout Viriginia’s Lobby Day.
According to YouTube’s policy, content “intended to sell firearms, instruct viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories, or instruct viewers on how to install those accessories is not allowed on YouTube,” and that “YouTube also doesn’t allow live streams that show someone holding, handling, or transporting a firearm.”
It’s YouTube’s position that since many of the people outside of the gun-free zone were carrying firearms during the rally that it qualified as prohibited content.
While plenty of people live streaming the rally had their feeds taken down, media organizations including WUSA9 were also affected. In the past, YouTube has made exceptions to their own rules for larger media outlets.
On the one hand, it could be perceived as a fair interpretation of their company policy, smaller and large live streams alike, but it is still a policy that prohibits streaming of a legal activity.
While a portion of the rally area was declared a gun-free zone following a state of emergency declaration by Gov. Ralph Northam, the surrounding area remained free for rallygoers and protesters to march while armed.
See Also: NSSF: YouTube’s New Policy Provides Cause for Concern
Speaking to PJ Media, communications manager at YouTube Alex Joseph stood up for their decision, saying “This is in line with our policies regarding content featuring firearms on YouTube. YouTube also doesn’t allow live streams that show someone holding, handling, or transporting a firearm.”
“Whatever your position on gun rights, media outlets should be able to cover a Second Amendment rally without getting blocked by YouTube,” said PJ’s Tyler O’Neil. “Carrying guns is not an illegal activity and protests like this should not be censored.”
“YouTube’s action against the Richmond gun-rights protesters is only likely to incense Second Amendment activists,” he added. “Like Gov. Ralph Northam’s effort to crack down on gun rights, this censorship will only help turn Virginia red again.”
YouTube has a history of blocking gun content and pro-gun materials, but they have ramped up efforts to remove it or demonetize it in recent months. Even GunsAmerica has been affected:
Our YouTube channel was demonetized, AGAIN, for no reason. The “offending” video showcased a product that is not even a firearm under federal law. It was simply a review, like any other review on YT. @TeamYouTube pic.twitter.com/HSNdPzakYM
— GunsAmerica (@GunsAmerica) January 21, 2020
So when are the gun rights organizations going to pull together and have their own informed webpage similar to you tube? This way it can allow most gun info to be allowed-not censored to give the left wing something to worry about. It is also time to get a a third political party with a focus on our true American History, self protection- etc.. I am sure a lot of veterans would run it smoothly, and with lots of votes drawn to once again have a proper America.
A Christian baker, after much stress and expense, must provide generic, not customized/specialty/creative, services against his business policies. So should not YouTube be required to provide generic, standard services to pro-gun users?
You tube is an outlet of the democratic party. Being surprised at their obvious bias is useless. The best way to fight tyranny is to boycott them and get all right minded Americans to do the same, if enough of us do this we can make them take notice.
Alphabet, thy name is Communism.
“YouTube also doesn’t allow live streams that show someone holding, handling, or transporting a firearm.”
What about the speeches from leftist politicians as they are holding ‘assault rifles’. Just lookup politicians holding firearms. Two-faced organization.
Hey You Tube…Herr Goebbels would be so proud of you.
The reason these rabid communists don’t want to “allow” these videos to be posted, is the “protests” were PEACEFUL and didn’t fit their Communist “narrative” . BUT if there would have been attacks, and fighting you can be damn sure they would have been posted.
Censorship is the tool of tyranny
Their house, their rules. You don’t like it? Then build your own platform. That’s the only way you are going to get around commercial censoring.
So why does a Christian baker have to provide goods/services against his beliefs? In the end, after much stress and expense, he did not have to provide custom services, but must still provide generic goods/services. He is a private business. YouTube should be required to provide generic, non-specialized services to pro-gun users just like their other users. Hmmm, Liberalism/Socialism in action.
The western version of PRAVDA ?
Get in line!
Your Google master has spoken!
I agree, as large as the Pro firearm population is, a sight, RIGHT Wing leaning, would surely be a hit. Youtube has proven they are a leftist organization, that routinely restrict most things with a narrative that is right of center.
So, are there any rich people who support the 2nd amendment? Because the only way I see this changing is to provide a competitor to YouTube. That will require a ton of money over a long period of time. Since the people posting and watching videos are not the customers, it is difficult for market forces to correct bad actors.
Bitchute, Brighteon, Dlive, etc.
The problem is that those sites are just imitations of things that are already there; they don’t have a way (other than targeting the disenfranchised) of gaining against entrenched companies like YT or even Vimeo because they aren’t offering YT’s customers much reason to migrate. Short of something that causes advertisers (not posters or watchers) that they would be better off on some other platform, they can’t compete. As long as Google convinces them that the disenfranchised are not a significant market, why would they take the risk of angering Google by supplying a competitor?
It’s not just a “rich” person. We have put up alternatives to YT. The problem is massive. Only Google’s massive monopoly power could have created this platform and sustained it. Why? Because even today, YT is a financial looser. Why? Because of the expense of having to – on-demand – accept millions of video files is the biggest long-term digital storage problem in this world outside of NSA. Here’s the problem. Video files are typically the biggest files on your computer. The script for my last video was 800 words – a MS Word file of 22 KB – kilobytes.
The accompanying video file was 2.6 MB. That’s 7 orders of magnitude greater! Now when you send those types of numbers out across the Internet, just carrying that data load is expensive, but storing it – in perpetuity – mind boggling.
Bottom line. No one will ever break this monopoly. No one. Can you have a 2nd Amendment “YouTube”. Yes, but even if you restricted the digital flow by a factor of 4 or 5, it would still overwhelm all but the wealthiest – and besides – it would never have a chance at paying for itself because YT has already set the new standard for advertisers.
Now, what you could do would be for each individual to host his own stuff – GunsAmerica could host their own stuff, and then feed that into a worldwide indexing system – in other words, a distributed, non-centralized network. That could work. Thinking out loud here. There would be no way to control it, but that may be a good thing. Hmmm, I think I’ll propose this on my next YouTube video. Hehehe
Get em Bill! We should try and start a GoFundMe page for gun rights organizations to launch a website specifically to inform the pro gun, and/or undecided patriots with true information rather than the misinformation and outright lies the anti gun faction would have you believe!
Some banned You Tuber’s are migrating to Bit Chute and other platforms that don’t censor.