YouTube shows gun videos to minors despite age-restriction policy, alarming report finds

Google-owned YouTube has continued to show gun-related videos to minors even after it claimed it had tightened restrictions, according to an alarming watchdog report released Wednesday.

YouTube updated its firearms policy, effective June 18, to enforce age restrictions for “the use of homemade firearms, automatic firearms, and certain firearm accessories.” However, videos that violated the policy were still accessible to minors earlier this month, an investigation by the Tech Transparency Project found.

A test YouTube account created for a fictional 14-year-old was presented with videos that should have been blocked under the policy. YouTube’s search autocomplete feature, which suggests possible questions for users, also “directed a minor to restricted gun content,” according to the TTP report.

Videos featured on the account included Glock “switches,” which can convert a semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic weapon, 3D-printed weapons known as “ghost guns,” and homemade silencers, like a pistol that “fires a plastic gas bottle taped together”. the barrel of the gun.”

“YouTube may have generated some positive headlines by promising to restrict certain types of gun content for minors, but TTP’s research shows it is not effectively implementing these changes,” TTP said in a blog post.

The investigation emerged during a period of heightened scrutiny on Capitol Hill over Big Tech’s failure to keep children safe online. Last month, the Senate voted to advance the Children’s Online Safety Act, which would have enacted a legal duty of care for social media apps like Instagram and YouTube to crack down on harmful content.

Critics of the bill and other efforts to moderate content for minors claim that such legislation could infringe on free speech.

When reached for comment, YouTube said it is looking into the report and has already taken action by restricting the age of some videos that featured automatic firearms. The company has also removed some videos that facilitated the sale of banned gun accessories and demonetized others that violated YouTube’s advertising guidelines.

Enforcement and detection of videos that violate the age restriction policy will improve over time, the company added.

“We have a robust set of policies governing what kind of firearms content can be displayed and monetized on YouTube, as well as policies regarding what young viewers can see,” the spokesperson said in a statement. YouTube, Javier Hernandez. “And we update these over time to reflect the current landscape, as we did earlier this year.”

TTP conducted its tests on August 7. The researchers used an account in a private Google Chrome browser with no previous search history.

To test the limitations of gun videos, the researchers entered relevant search terms to see Google’s autocomplete suggestions, then clicked enter to see the full results.

When following Google’s suggested search for the term “glock switch,” the top result was a video titled “G17 with a drum and switch” and a heart-eye emoji that had nearly a million views.

In its testing, TTP said it found only one example of a video about Glock keys that produced the message: “Sorry, this content is age-restricted.”

“This was the only time during this research that YouTube raised any barriers to viewing age-restricted gun content,” the group said.