Many gun centric content creators are taking their content off of YouTube to
other platforms. Welcome back to What's Trending, I'm Shira Lazar. Be sure to like
this video and subscribe for more social media news daily.
Back in March, YouTube introduced new restrictions on videos that feature guns
and other weapons. The platform said it would ban videos that "promote or link to
websites selling firearms and accessories," as well as instructional
videos on how to assemble firearms. The policy doesn't affect videos though that
demonstrate gun use or discuss gun safety.
But either way, many gun enthusiasts were upset, arguing that they were being
unfairly discriminated against. And at least one channel started posting
content to Pornhub. And this coming up is all pistol. It's all pistol only and we're using a unique
enough pistol. And now there are several video hosting platforms that have popped
up to fill the void. You see a gap and you fill it. That's how capitalism and
business works. One of those platforms is UGEtube. The UGE stands for Utah Gun
Exchange, not like when the president says "yuge." The huge problem. That is a huge
problem. So you think he has a bigger problem? I think he's got a huge
problem. A huge heroin problem. UGEtube says it's a "freedom enhancing platform" that offers a
"safe harbor and guaranteed censorship-free-forever experience." UtahGun
Exchange.com is a site for Utah residents to privately sell guns. Though
the platform itself allows for all kinds of content to be uploaded, UGE itself is
overtly political with an anti-gun control position. We hereby call for no
changes to Utah gun laws especially raising the age to purchase a rifle. Any
legislation that purports to raise the age shall also contain a provision
preventing said population from participating in our armed forces. The
founder and CEO of UGE, Brian Melchior, told BuzzFeed
that huge tube was as much about freedom as monetization. We are in the business
of enhancing liberty. Our focus and our mission is to spread freedom and to give
people an opportunity to broadcast themselves uninhibited by you know the
concerns about demonetization or losing your platform all together.
Gunstreamer.com is another new addition to the gun-video space. Its
mission statement is similar to UGEtube, though it says it's "politically unbiased."
Oddly enough Gunstreamer, UGE, is also based in Utah. That begs the
question: what's up with Utah? Why Utah? Gunstreamers founder, Austin Roberts,
believes that YouTube's new rules are not about content, but are politically
motivated. Now that may or may not be the case but I think it's more that
YouTube doesn't want to take responsibility for illegal use of these
weapons. I mean, just talking about weapons might be okay and the policy is
okay with that, but they don't want to be supporting illegal use of weapons. Let's
be clear. Both of these sites, however, may have been beaten to the punch by Full30
which launched back in 2014 as both a video platform and a social network.
Since they're over three years old, full30.com has been able to build up a
sizable backlog of freely-available content. Though none of these sites are
exactly setting the world on fire, full30.com has seen a significant increase in
traffic since the YouTube policy changes were announced. The ultimate
success of these platforms though will depend on how much of that content from
YouTube does get pulled. As of now, there's tons of gun-related content
still on the site that doesn't violate the policy. The problem is as we've have more
divided as a society in terms of gun laws and what we support and don't
support more advertisers won't want to be connected to that content and so
YouTube will inevitably want to pull that content from the platform. Guess
what? You don't need to have gun related videos to be demonetized from YouTube.
So as long as YouTube videos are being monetized and platforms like Facebook
and Twitter are not censoring content which is questionable I don't necessarily see
how just a video platform that focuses on this community can break through.
However, is something like this needed if you are passionate about something like this
and you want to connect with others? Yeah, sure. I don't think it's gonna be as big as
YouTube but it could be needed. All I can say is finally a platform that What's
Trending wouldn't have to join. So what do you think? Do you think these sites
have a chance of getting really popular? Let us know in the comments below and be
sure to like and subscribe for more of What's Trending.