Gun Control: YouTube Goes After Weapon Modification Videos Following Las Vegas Shooting

In the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting, which left 58 dead and more than 400 injured, social media platforms have come under scrutiny for hosting material that could have inspired or aided in violent acts.

Sites such as Google, Facebook and even YouTube, too are realizing that they need to do more to prevent material that could aid in violence from being readily available.

While Facebook apologized for promoting fake news about the shooting, YouTube has now taken down videos, which provides users instructions on gun modification.

The Google-owned video sharing platform has taken down videos showing how to add a device called “bump stock” to a rifle, and which makes the gun fire more rapidly, after news surfaced that the shooter, Stephen Paddock, had converted his semi-automatic gun the same way.

A bump stock not only increases the number of bullets that can be fired by a weapon but also lets it fire automatically. While getting an automatic weapon is not that easy in the U.S., gun modification lets you get around the hurdle.

Since it costs only $100 and if you have the instructions correct, a bump stock lets you convert your semi-automatic into an automatic weapon.

YouTube by its latest move is trying to make it harder for anyone to make this conversion.

"We have long had a policy against harmful and dangerous content. In the wake of the recent tragedy in Las Vegas, we have taken a closer look at videos that demonstrate how to convert firearms to make them fire more quickly and we've expanded our existing policy to prohibit these videos," a spokesperson for YouTube told the Telegraph.

Following the Vegas shooting, there have been calls to ban bump stocks altogether, something which is being resisted by many gun advocates.

However YouTube hasn’t taken down all videos related to bump stocks, as there are informative and demonstrative videos available on the site, according to a quick search performed at the time of writing Tuesday.

However, the videos regarding the do-it-yourself modification have been taken off, and could not be found in search.

This is not the first time that these tech giants have come under scrutiny for facilitating and hosting content that were shaky on ethical grounds.

YouTube had to apologize earlier this year after it was found that it played paid-for ads before racist content. Major advertisers including Pepsi, McDonald's, Verizon, AT&T, Guardian, Johnson and Johnson and others took their ads off YouTube.

Amazon was found to be grouping ingredients needed to create an explosive in the wake of the Parsons Green attack last month; step-by-step guides for terrorists were discovered on Google and Twitter following the Westminster Bridge attack in March.

The onus on preventing attacks is surprisingly being laid on tech companies and the reason for this is the availability of information and substances freely, which empowers individuals to create their own weapons — a domain that would have in the past belonged to law enforcement agencies.