<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1667311376026,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000183-c233-d791-abd3-de7fdbfc0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1667311376026,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000183-c233-d791-abd3-de7fdbfc0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_67238835", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1128817"} }); rn","_id":"00000184-3380-d791-abd4-3fdd94680000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedEXCLUSIVE — YouTube should “stop discriminating against conservative views” and “restore” lawful videos it removed following pressure from Democratic senators, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen demanded in a letter Wednesday to the streaming giant.
YouTube censored several videos about firearms, including one from licensed Montana gun dealer Jason Schaller giving a tutorial on how to build a gun legally, after five senators in February called on the platform to do so. Such censorship is “deeply troubling” to Knudsen, a Republican, who asked YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner to stop removing “speech it dislikes” and restore videos it scrapped from the platform.
“So long as YouTube acts hand-in-glove with federal politicians to repress constitutional rights, States will continue finding ways to reign in the power of Big Tech,” the attorney general wrote in his letter. “It is past time that you considered the consequences of those actions for your company’s bottom line and withdrew your complicity from the trampling of rights disfavored by D.C. Democrats.”
MISSOURI AND LOUISIANA ATTORNEYS GENERAL ACCUSE BIDEN OF COLLUDING WITH BIG TECH
On Feb. 14, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote to Wojcicki expressing “concerns” about YouTube hosting videos instructing “viewers on how to make and manufacture ghost guns.” Democrats and liberal activists have used the term “ghost gun” to refer to privately made guns and kits that do not have serial numbers.
The lawmakers alleged to YouTube that several videos, including Schaller’s Oct. 7, 2018, video on his channel The Rogue Banshee, which had over 48,000 views, violated community guidelines. YouTube took down Schaller’s video just one day after senators wrote to the platform, Schaller told the Washington Examiner.
YouTube holds that any video intended to “instruct viewers on how to make firearms, ammunition, and certain accessories or instruct viewers on how to install those accessories is not allowed” on its platform.
“My whole thing is I’m not mad that YouTube took it down,” said Schaller, who wrote a letter to Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Steve Daines (R-MT) on Feb. 27 requesting “swift action” to hold their colleagues “accountable” for pressuring YouTube. “I mean, I don’t like YouTube’s community guidelines. But I did violate it.”
“What I’m upset about is that five U.S. senators used Senate letterhead to take down videos that they didn’t agree with,” he added. “It’s not the Senate’s job to enforce policies of the private sector. Using Senate letterhead like that, you’re getting into the thing of, did that actually violate our First Amendment rights because they engaged in censorship?”
Schaller is not alone in his criticism of the lawmakers who wrote to YouTube. Two videos senators said in their letter should be removed were by the popular gun-related YouTuber Tactical Toolbox — and they had over 1.1 million views combined. The videos were later removed, and Tactical Toolbox released a video in March titled “They’re Trying To Take Me Out….Seriously… .”
Knudsen sees the censorship of Schaller and other law-abiding Americans as part of the broader picture of social media companies targeting conservatives. The attorney general in his letter cited other examples of this, including YouTube’s removal of a clip showing former President Donald Trump speaking at The Heritage Foundation in April.
The Department of Homeland Security has extensively coordinated with social media companies to develop a process for “misinformation” and “disinformation” on platforms to be reported, according to leaked documents obtained by the Intercept and reported on Monday. Knudsen’s Republican attorneys general colleagues — Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana — released documents in September showing DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services emailed Facebook and Twitter employees to flag alleged misinformation examples and give talking points, purportedly to combat false narratives.
Those documents were obtained as part of the attorneys general’s May 2022 lawsuit against the Biden administration over censorship.
“This is a part of the concerning pattern of the federal government using private pressure to infringe on Americans’ rights when they can’t pass their preferred policies through the legislative process, and in this case, they singled out a resident of my state,” Knudsen told the Washington Examiner. “YouTube’s willingness to go along with requests like this from just five far-left senators is also alarming and indicative of the company’s anti-gun values.”
In 2018, YouTube banned firearm demo videos and also instructional videos on how to build firearms. But in 2021, NBC News noticed certain gun videos were still live on the platform and contacted YouTube’s parent company, Google, to demand answers. YouTube shortly thereafter removed the videos that the outlet had pointed to.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Assembling firearms for their own use is a tradition and right that Americans have exercised since the founding of our nation,” Knudsen also told the Washington Examiner. “Censoring these videos isn’t going to make anyone safer — it just gives a few people in Silicon Valley an opportunity to virtue signal and pat themselves on the back.”
A YouTube spokesman told the Washington Examiner: “Anyone can publish content on YouTube as long as they follow our community guidelines, and content that violates our policies is removed. We enforce our policies consistently, regardless of the speaker’s political views.”
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MTAGO LTR to Youtube Re Cen… by Gabe Kaminsky
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