NBC News reported this week that expanded YouTube regulations around firearms content are causing a number of creators in the “GunTuber community” to move over to other platforms. Some of the new rules raising eyebrows include blocking anyone under the age of 18 from viewing videos about homemade or automatic weapons. And a ban on tutorials that show viewers how to remove firearm safety devices. But the real core issue at hand, of course, concerns monetization and advertising.
YouTube has banned direct promotion of gun sales and links out to sites that sell firearms since 2018. The platform’s official policy is that creators whose primary purpose is selling firearms should produce their content elsewhere. However, enforcement of these rules has long been inconsistent, with enough loopholes and openings for many creators to establish profitable channels with large followings and major partnership and branding deals.
According to NBC, YouTube now plans to start enforcing these rules more consistently, even aggressively. That means no links out to gun retailers or landing pages where viewers can connect with manufacturers and retailers, and not just in the written video descriptions but graphic overlays and annotations as well. The article suggests creators are even blocked from speaking a web address aloud where their viewers can go purchase firearms. Additionally, a lot more firearms videos – including any content dealing with automatic weapons of any kind – will be demonetized.
This is less a simple rule change and more an existential threat to the ability of creators to post firearms-themed content to YouTube. And in some ways, it’s understandable that the Google-owned platform might take this stance.
Videos about guns and the firing of guns have been a YouTube staple for its entire lifespan. American Kyle Myers had a breakout early success after launching his channel, FPSRussia, way back in 2010. The videos featured Myers, in character as a Russian named “Dimitri Patapov,” testing out various large firearms and explosives. Actor and comedian Richard Ryan also eventually segued his output from sketch comedy into firearms videos – first as “Rated RR” and then later as the rebranded “FullMag” – specifically experimenting with the impact of large guns and weapons on everyday objects. Unlike something more practical and hands-on, like firearm tutorials or product reviews, these videos were seen as a kind of stunt or “experiment,” akin to crushing something with an industrial press or microwaving something, just to see what happens.
15 or so years later, internet content featuring firearms has become a hot-button political issue with far more intense media scrutiny. Many academics and members of the press have pointed out the connection between gun content online and hard-right nationalist ideology, and even in some cases, domestic terrorism. The “GunTuber” community had a brief, very negative moment in the spotlight over the summer, after it was revealed that Thomas Michael Crooks – the attempted assassin who fired a sniper rifle at Donald Trump during a Butler, Pennsylvania rally – was wearing a shirt reading “DEMOLITIA.” The slogan is associated with popular YouTube channel Demolition Ranch, which centers around host Matt Carrker showcasing and shooting off a variety of large guns and firearms.
Carriker declined Passionfruit’s offer for an interview. But in a video posted to his channel after the Trump shooting, he distanced himself and Demolition Ranch from Crooks, pointing out “we don’t vet the people who buy our shirts, obviously.” Nonetheless, the case reinforces an association – fairly or otherwise – between people who watch a lot of online firearm content and people who commit real-world acts of violence with firearms.
There’s also the case of YouTube influencer Brandon Herrera, who ran for Congress in Texas’ 23rd House District earlier this year and came extremely close to winning a primary against US Rep. Tony Gonzales. Herrera – known as the “AK Guy” due to a popular series of videos in which he built a homemade AK-style rifle – was running for Congress in a district that includes Uvalde, Texas, and Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two adults died in a mass shooting in 2022. Nonetheless, he ran a campaign that was specifically geared around gun rights, in particular the repeal of regulations that were put in place after the Uvalde shooting.
Beyond the politics of firearms videos, there are mounting public safety concerns more generally around posting videos that make impressionable people – particularly young people – curious about dangerous weapons.
The traditional rules that protect social media and streaming platforms from legal actions – like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – are also being called into question or reinterpreted, creating a fresh liability issue for tech companies and publishers. Google and YouTube certainly don’t want to shoulder the blame should someone purchase a firearm from a YouTube link and then use it to commit a real-world atrocity. It’s hard to deny some kind of connection between young people watching “GunTube” and then developing a significant and real enthusiasm for firearms and firearm ownership. Sensible limits to the spread of this kind of content make a certain baseline level of common sense.
Nonetheless, there are also clear issues of free speech to consider. Firearms remain legal in the US, as is talking about firearms in a public space. Barring creators who make content themed around firearms from monetizing their videos – and making it impossible for them to forge meaningful promotional or sponsorship deals with the companies that produce their product of interest – also makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to consistently remain active on YouTube at all.
Bear in mind, as well, that demonetized videos are also not as heavily promoted by YouTube’s own internal algorithms. As Mike Jones of the popular firearm channel GarandThumb told Bloomberg earlier this year, “Without monetization, your videos really aren’t going anywhere.” So we’re not just talking about barring GunTubers from making money, a relatively reasonable request. We’re talking about suppressing their content in a far more aggressive and large-scale fashion.
Not all channels associated with firearms are producing similar kinds of content. Some channels explore vintage or historical weapons or their restoration. Others look at how different branches of law enforcement or the military specifically use firearms. Some focus on the public policy and political angles of firearm ownership and promotion, even from a progressive or politically left-wing perspective (though this is still rare). Which raises the question: If not every firearm video is the same, is it fair to govern them all by the same set of rules?
There are no easy answers to this thorny set of issues. But a simple tweak to YouTube’s Terms of Service is unlikely to settle the problem. For now, a number of firearms-themed channels – including Demolition Ranch – remain lively and active on YouTube’s platform, even actively seeking ways to get around the various new rules. If that situation doesn’t last, there’s sure to be fallout not just from creators and fans, but the gun industry, which increasingly relies on online marketing and promotion to reach consumers.
