YouTube’s policies regarding firearms-related content are arbitrary and nearly impossible to keep up with, some Wyoming gun company representatives say.
Greg Buchel, founder and president of Big Horn Armory Inc. in Cody, told Cowboy State Daily that after about a year of wrangling with YouTube over the platform’s rules, the company’s channel was finally shut down.
“What they said was we violated 'community policies,' end of story” without offering any further explanation, Buchel said.
Big Horn Armory has switched to posting its videos to Rumble, a alternative long-form video platform.
Luke Thorkildsen, the chief operating officer with Weatherby Inc. in Sheridan, told Cowboy State Daily that his company has also received “strikes” from YouTube.
He also said those have been without any clear explanation as to why.
Each “strike” is considered a warning. After three strikes, YouTube might delete the offending video, or even shut down the creator’s channel.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Thorkildsen said. "My guess is that they just have AI (artificial intelligence) crawling for information about any attempts to sell firearms on YouTube, which we don’t do."
A Cowboy State Daily message sent to Google, which runs YouTube, wasn’t answered by publication time.
Blasting A Frozen Chicken
Big Horn Armory never posted content on YouTube that included any of the platform’s clearly forbidden material, such as instructions on how to alter a firearm, Buchel said.
Most of the content was demonstrating the company’s products, such as the AR500, which Big Horn Armory touts as the world’s most powerful AR-style rifle.
In one video, an AR500 is used to blast a frozen chicken to pieces with a single shot.
Buchel said that shouldn’t have violated YouTube’s community standards, because numerous gun-related channels feature videos shooting and blowing up all kinds of things.
He said Big Horn Armory didn’t used to have significant problems with YouTube.
“About a year ago, they started pegging us,” he said. "They were saying, ‘You’re in violation of community standards, but we’re not going to give you a strike.’”
More recently, YouTube started issuing strikes against Big Horn Armory.
The third strike hit about two weeks ago, and the company is apparently finished on the platform, Buchel said.
“I can’t even access my videos that were already on there because they’ve completely blocked me from YouTube,” he said. “These were videos that were on our YouTube channel for years.”
‘No Way To Talk To A Human’
Thorkildsen said Weatherby goes to great lengths to avoid posting anything on YouTube that might violate the platform’s policies.
The company’s product and podcast videos aren’t direct sales pitches, he said.
“If we have a new product coming out, we’ll talk about it, but we take extreme care to not say, ‘Go here to buy this,’” he said.
At most, viewers are invited to visit Weatherby’s website for more information, he added.
Even so, Weatherby still gets penalized, usually without any clear explanation or avenue to question the platform’s rulings, Thorkildsen said.
“We’ll have one or two strikes. There’s no way to talk to a human about it. There’s no real recourse we can take,” he said. “We haven’t figured out a way to do anything about it.
“We’re a legal business. We’re operating fully within the bounds of the law,” Thorkildsen added.
Seeking Other Platforms
Boge Quinn is a friend of Buchel and one of the creators of Gunblast, which features firearms-related content.
He told Cowboy State Daily that Gunblast was run off of YouTube, and never told exactly why.
“If they had given us some guidance, our fate could likely have been avoided; even the liaison assigned to us ghosted us,” he said in an email to Cowboy State Daily.
“I couldn't help but notice that after they de-monetized our channel years ago, ‘somebody’ was still making ad money on them,” Quinn added. "Again, I hate to lose the audience, but I don't miss the BS."
Firearms and pro-Second Amendment content has trouble on social media platforms in general, Mark Jones of Buffalo, a national director for Gun Owners of America, told Cowboy State Daily.
“We know it happens. It happens to our content and that of other Second Amendment rights organizations,” Jones said. "It’s happened for years and will probably continue to.
“I’m assuming that most passionate Second Amendment advocates and gun owners realize this too."
The seemingly arbitrary hostility to gun-friendly content on social media might be driving gun rights organizations and content creators to alternative platforms, Jones noted.
“I think that’s one of the things that’s driving the rise of platforms like Rumble,” he said.
He recalled a quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom Jones admires.
“In America, we treat the Second Amendment like it’s a secondary right,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
