In the wake of a mass shooting in Las Vegas earlier this month that left 58 people dead and 489 others severely wounded, YouTube has begun banning videos that depict tutorials on gun modification. The ban affects videos demonstrating how to make rifles more deadly using a device called a “bump stock.”
The modification method allows for bump firing, allowing semi-automatic weapons to fire similarly to fully automatic ones, using the gun’s kickback to rapidly activate the trigger. The technique is not currently banned by federal law. It has, however, come under increased scrutiny after it was discovered that shooter Stephen Paddock used it to fire hundreds of rounds into a crowd at Mandalay Bay.
Bump stocks were attached to 12 of the rifles found in Paddock’s hotel room.
The shooting has since been declared the deadliest committed by a single individual in U.S. history.
California Senator Diane Feinstein has subsequently gone on record, declaring a need for a law banning the technology. However, the National Rifle Association (NRA) responded by stopping short of a full ban, instead calling for regulation similar to those that govern the guns themselves.
According to a spokesperson from YouTube, “We have long had a policy against harmful and dangerous content, in the wake of the recent tragedy in Las Vegas, we took a closer look at videos that demonstrate how to convert firearms to make them fire more quickly and we expanded our existing policy to prohibit these videos.”
The spokesperson disclosed that the ban isn’t entirely new, rather it’s an expansion of existing rules. The new ban on bump stocks joins existing guidelines on the site that already include links to the sale of firearms and bump stocks themselves. Videos that are deemed in violation of the site’s community guidelines can be flagged for removal by the general public.
It’s important to note that most of the recent videos on the subject are from news channels discussing the role of bump stocks in recent shootings and whether they should be banned. Still, there are plenty of explainer and tutorial listings that haven’t been taken down, and that sheer number could be what’s causing the delay. YouTube reacts when clips are flagged as violating its community guidelines, and its global review team evaluates and removes offending content. To make a dent in the pile of videos it has to remove, YouTube will probably need to rely on its users to proactively flag such media, and that will take time.
