As YouTube restricts the firearms videos that it allows on its platform, at least one channel has shifted to uploading its videos to Pornhub instead.
With a dampened finger held to the political winds, YouTube announced that it would ban DIY and commercially-focused gun videos, including any videos that “intends to sell firearms or certain firearms accessories through direct sales…or links to sites that sell these items.”
As NPR explained:
Starting next month, YouTube will ban videos that offer instructions on how to make firearms and accessories such as silencers and bump stocks. It will prohibit content in which firearms and accessories are sold, both directly and through other websites. Videos on how to install firearms modifications will also be barred.
YouTube says the changes expand on existing policies. “We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies,” a spokesperson for YouTube said in a statement. “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, specifically, items like ammunition, gatling triggers, and drop-in auto sears.”
One gun review vlogger, InRange TV, told BBC that it will now stash its videos on Pornhub.
“We will not be seeking any monetisation from Pornhub… we are merely looking for a safe harbour for our content and for our viewers,” read a statement from Karl Kasarda and Ian McCollum, the pair behind the channel.
According to The Wrap,
In a Facebook post on Thursday, InRangeTV called out YouTube for blocking gun-related videos but allowing content related to drug use.
“My point with YouTube’s policies and InRangeTV’s move is not about changing your mind on the topic of firearms ownership – it’s about the freedom of expression on the internet,” the post reads. “Why are we seeing continuing restrictions and challenges towards content about something demonstrably legal yet not against that which is clearly illegal?
The statement continued, “Why is YouTube using its position as the world’s largest and most empowering content provider and place of free expression as a tool to control the narrative so inconsistently?”
The answer is, of course, that the forces of authoritarianism loathe personal freedoms of any shade that pose a threat to itself. A self-medicated populace is fine, even preferable, but an armed, educated and “free-thinking”, sexually- or ideologically- liberated one is dangerous. The same people who want to take away your firearms also want to take away your porn, as well as your access to “dangerous” ideas — in the classroom, in public forums, in entertainment and in the news media.
It was inevitable that the embattled pro-gun groups, like gamers before them, would find common cause with the adult industry. Thankfully, in companies like Pornhub, they’ve found an colossus that cannot be easily bullied.
