Over the years I’ve covered the big tech censorship that many of our friends have had to deal with. It brings me no pleasure to report on pro-freedom or shooting sports related voices being silenced by the technocratic oligarchs. Whether it’s the shadow banning Olympian and Top Shot contestant Gabby Franco, the silencing, demonetization, and eventual deletion of Jason at Texas Gun Vault by YouTube, TikToc banning Olympian Lanny Barnes, aka Lanny Oakley over a post, Facebook banning Gunstuff TV from doing live feeds, or Instagram blocking the Pew Pew Jew from advertising, none of it is alright in my book. The latest bout with censorship issues involving Guns & Gadgets luckily got resolved. However, those resolutions did not come without the limiting exposure of two of his latest pieces.
My friend and colleague Jared, the host of the largely popular YouTube channel Guns & Gadgets, recently had the distribution of two of his videos disrupted. While everything is now good to go with the channel, that’s not to say there was no damage.
The first ding that GNG got had to do with an alleged copyright infringement. Jared is not in the business of ripping off copyrighted material. Let’s face it, no real journalist is. Utilizing fair use, a section of some interviews were used in one video involving Robert Kennedy Jr. and his answers to some questions on the Second Amendment in some of Jared’s coverage. The problem that arises in such situations, even if rectified, the full momentum of a newly released video fizzles out, and that grossly affects the response and further distribution of the content. In this case, Jared was using the footage under fair use rules, and eventually persevered in his appeals process.
The content about RFK Jr. had to do with whether or not he’s speaking out of both sides of his mouth. The narrative that RFK Jr. has put forward has been that he’s not coming for anyone’s guns, nor does he see firearms as the problem. To be honest, a lot of what he does have to say about firearm ownership is rather refreshing coming from a Democratic candidate, until we get to the but. The but comes from this question and answer that you can check out in Jared’s video:
Interviewer: I want to ask you about the fact that you’re running for the Democratic nomination and 77% of Democrats support an assault weapons ban. Do you not support an assault weapons ban?
RFK Jr.: If we can get a consensus on it, if Republicans and Democrats agreed to it, and it passed Congress, I would sign it.
This coverage is not about RFK Jr. seeking the Democratic nomination, however, even with the above admission, he’s a huge improvement over sleepy Joe. A so-called “assault weapons” ban is not kosher with me – at all – and here’s my “but,” but RFK Jr. would be better than what we have today.
The other video he had an issue with, got demonetized and then subsequently had a “trigger warning” plastered on it. The content had to do with Jared’s coverage of a youth defending his mother who was being attacked. In the video, no actual shooting was shown, however the footage of the mother being punched by her attacker was. For whatever reasons the YouTube gods decided the video was not fit for monetization. Ironically, YouTube still ran ads on the video, just Jared could not profit from them. Eventually it was all sorted out and both the trigger warning was removed and monetization was returned, but the damage was already done.
Jared noted in a message to me after we first talked:
I just got notification that I won my appeal. Video has no restrictions now BUT…they killed the momentum and successfully kept the topic from being recommended.
When Jared and I chatted about the issues, he relayed to me something many other content creators or online personalities have in the past. The fact is, if his channel was not as big as it is now, there’s probably no way he would be able to start up the same today without getting completely canceled along the way. It seems to me, and other high follower accounts have agreed with this assessment, that the bigger channels are much safer than the smaller, as they do pull in a great deal of revenue for YouTube. They hate guns, but not enough to hate the gobs of money that talent pulls in for them.
Jared also said to me about the situation, “Censor as they may, The People want the truth and I am here to get them that information!”
I’m glad everything worked out for Jared. Aside from being a friend and colleague, I don’t like hearing about any voices getting silenced for expressing themselves. There’s no doubt that freedom loving Americans and pro-civil liberty voices are being hushed by the progressive big tech industry. We must continue to remind big tech that we’re here and we’re not going to go away. They have to deal with us as long as we’re citizens and not subjects.
If you’d like to catch the videos that caused such a kerfuffle for Guns & Gadgets, you may do so HERE and HERE. Or you can catch them in the embed below. At least this’ll maybe help get the numbers where they should have been had neither of these pieces been derailed.
