"YouTube Says Silencer Video Takedowns, Gun Channel Deletions Were Mistakes"

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Social media giant YouTube has reversed course on deleting videos and channels featuring content where a silencer is attached to a gun. The video hosting site said recent moderation efforts aimed at videos where sound suppressors are affixed to guns were a mistake. The takedowns and channel strikes had appeared to affect videos, whether attaching the suppressor was part of a guide or just incidental. The company said it is now in the process of restoring videos and channels that were wrongly flagged. “Upon review, we determined the videos in question are not violative of our Community Guidelines and have reinstated them,” a YouTube spokesperson told The Reload. “When it’s brought to our attention that content has been mistakenly removed, we review it and take appropriate action, including reinstating and removing associated strikes.”

The reversal comes after channels with upwards of ten million followers run by suppressor manufacturers or professional content creators and those with a few dozen followers run by hobbyists had videos taken down and appeals denied. It is an example of another moderation controversy surrounding a tech giant and how it approaches gun content on its platform. It may spurn further distrust among gun owners looking to post or consume videos and could invite further scrutiny from already tech-skeptical Republicans who just took control of the House of Representatives. The takedowns sparked outrage and panic among gun channels on the platform. The official channels of SilencerCo, Ammoland, and Recoil Magazine were all deleted outright. Silencer Central had numerous videos pulled down. Individual videos from creators, including Demolition Ranch, Garand Thumb, Top Shot Dustin, and many more, were taken down. The creators were all told that they had violated the company’s firearms policy in automated notification emails. “Content that instructs viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories; or how to install those certain accessories is not allowed on YouTube,” the emails sent by YouTube said.
Ian McCollum, who runs the popular Forgotten Weapons channel, told The Reload his video detailing the history of the Knight’s XM9 Beretta “Hush Puppy” was taken down over two years and over a million views after it was initially published. While his video was restored after The Reload forwarded it to a YouTube media contact, he said he had not received any communication from the company at all. He said the platform has become increasingly difficult to work with in recent years, a common complaint shared by YouTubers who post content from across the entertainment spectrum. “YouTube is a fundamentally unreliable partner that refuses to talk to its creators and actively works against them,” McCollum said. “They have no interest in the things that originally made YouTube a great place to find information. They are only trying to change an ever-shrinking attention span to feed ads to a constantly scrolling feed of flashy distractions.”
McCollum said he is glad the company changed its mind on this issue but noted the lack of communication and clear guidelines made the ordeal far worse than it needed to be. “This is a welcome reprieve, but it doesn’t change any of the fundamental problems with the company,” he said. YouTube told The Reload it is continuing to work on its moderation enforcement systems’ accuracy to avoid future mistakes like this. But that’s unlikely to comfort creators like McCollum, who said he had proactively scanned through thousands of videos in his archive to either blur or delete videos he had thought might get his channel taken down during the mistaken crackdown. “The rest of my thoughts aren’t fit for publication :)” McCollum said.
https://thereload.com/youtube-says-sile ... -mistakes/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: "YouTube Says Silencer Video Takedowns, Gun Channel Deletions Were Mistakes"

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Indeed, that's one of two big reasons why I host my own Web server with my reloading videos. The YouTubers have removed several of my videos from my channel, so I stopped posting them there.

As was already pointed out about their revised terms of service, several years after I had already posted my videos:

“Content that instructs viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories; or how to install those certain accessories is not allowed on YouTube.”

They do have the legal right to do this. And I have the legal right, and the duty in my view, to tell them to go screw themselves and host them myself.
"SF Liberal With A Gun + Free Software Advocate"
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http://www.liberalsguncorner.com/
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