Fewer than 48 hours after YouTube announced a tightened policy concerning gun-related content on its platform, creators are feeling the effects and scrambling for solutions, no matter how out of the box they may seem. As brands like Spike’s Tactical see their channels terminated thanks to infringements of YouTube’s content guidelines, one firearms channel has set up shop on the pornography video platform Pornhub.
The channel making that bold move is InRangeTV, which counts 143,000 subscribers on YouTube. Aggrieved by YouTube’s new standards, which prohibit videos that link to firearm sales, instruct viewers on firearm manufacturing, or promote the installation of certain accessories (such as high-capacity magazines), InRangeTV has launched a Pornhub channel, where three of its videos are currently available. (A NSFW warning: While the content available on that landing page is safe for work, the ads that appear there may not be.)
“YouTube’s newly released released vague and one-sided firearms policy makes it abundantly clear that YouTube cannot be counted upon to be a safe harbor for a wide variety of views and subject matter,” reads a post on the InRangeTV Facebook page. “InRangeTV is excited to be joining a group of content creators who are truly open and non-judgmental when it comes to potentially controversial content.”
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Don’t be surprised if other firearm channels copy InRangeTV’s unusual distribution choice, especially as more of them are banned from YouTube. Spike’s Tactical, which says it sells “the finest AR-15s on the planet,” has been a high-profile casualty of YouTube’s new restrictions, as it revealed in a recent Facebook post of its own.
YouTube adopted its new policy on gun-related content after February’s high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The video site had previously restricted videos related to bump stocks in response to the massacre in Las Vegas.