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Muzzled—The Breadth of Big Tech’s Strategy to Marginalize Gun Owners
by David Burnett - March 29, 2021
Gun owners are accustomed to legalized discrimination. In some states, merchants still hang signs refusing to do business with us. We’re used and abused by big Hollywood. We’re outcasts in academia. Much of the mainstream media refuses to treat us fairly. Some government officials desperately want to take away our freedom. Even a few major corporations have openly called for more restrictions on us.
So when the website AR15.com was suddenly kicked out by its web registrar GoDaddy, who claimed their content “both promotes and encourages violence,” it was hard to be surprised. The thing is, gun owners are often told that, if they want a place to discuss guns, they must build their own websites, but now they must also have web registars that don’t object to them.
“It’s an internet forum, so you get a mix of everything,” said Juan Avila, the site’s co-founder and president. “When emotions run high and people say things they shouldn’t, we have rules we follow. Any threats, even veiled, are gone. This was nothing outside the normal. It just seems like they wanted us gone.”
Avila says they quickly switched registrars, but further attempts to get clarification were ignored. “We’re not holding grudges. They wanted us gone, and we’re happy to be gone.”
The move came on the heels of Big Tech companies moving to terminate the social-media site Parler, a small, but quickly growing competitor to Twitter—this, of course, happened just as Twitter had banned outgoing President Donald J. Trump.
Such crackdowns, of course, aren’t new. Hegemonic companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube have engaged in digital discrimination against America’s millions of gun owners for years.
Social Media
Facebook first announced they would begin limiting online gun sales in 2014, claiming they wanted to “balance” user interests. Two years later, they announced a complete ban on selling firearms on their platform. After another two years, the site expanded the ban to include accessories, such as grips, optics, lights, sights and bipods, as well as mace, BB, airsoft, flare guns and tasers. During President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the site even temporarily halted the sale of benign accessories like holsters, vests and safes.
The policy was then extended to its powerful advertising engine, which severely limited the reach of gun stores and Second Amendment groups. Early enforcement often deleted legitimate firearms business pages, as Facebook insider Chuck Rossi acknowledged. Firearms enthusiasts and advocacy groups also found their pages to be the target of mysterious takedowns—some have been permanent. Others reported “shadow bans” in which companies secretly hid content from audiences. Enforcement initially relied on user reports, which led to anti-gun activists patrolling groups and reporting suspected listings. The site now uses paid staffers and artificial intelligence to do this work.
Instagram applied the same policies, and in 2019 began cracking down on firearms “influencers” on the site (many were women), and deplatforming members who promoted firearms-branded content. The policy crippled the reach of gunsmiths, competitive shooters, hunters, instructors and reviewers by denying them opportunities to get firearm-related sponsorships from trusted brands like Smith & Wesson, Glock or Winchester.
Twitter, which selectively blacked out news being reported from America’s oldest newspaper, the New York Post, to protect then-candidate Joe Biden, proudly prohibits “the promotion of weapons and weapon accessories globally.” (The policy extends to replicas, antiques, paintball/airsoft/BB guns, mounts, grips and knives.)
Pinterest restricts private and commercial firearms sales—or even the display or encouragement of “dangerous activities.” LinkedIn’s policy forbids “promotion, use or sale of” firearms or ammunition.
Search Engines and Apps
Back in 2012, Google began discriminating against firearms in their shopping search results. Their massive ad engine also banned “dangerous items,” and even banned water guns. Initial efforts led to humorous glitches, such as censoring nail and glue guns, as well as the bands Guns N’ Roses and Sex Pistols; it even blocked words like “burgundy” for containing the letters “G-U-N,” though it failed to catch typo queries like “handgnu.”
Microsoft’s search engine Bing also bans ads related to firearms, which later included airsoft, BB and air guns.
As manager of the Android phone platform, Google also removed gun- or ammo-themed apps like GunBroker, Gun.Deals and AmmoSeek. Apple removed its gun chat emoji, replacing it with a squirt gun. Google, Facebook, Samsung, Twitter and Microsoft soon followed.
Apple also required gaming apps to remove images of guns or violence from promotional materials, but kept the game violence itself.
Remember, this is just the publicly acknowledged censorship. While companies hide underlying data on algorithms, researchers have analyzed millions of searches and discovered a significant left-of-center bias from sites like Google. These claims were confirmed by Google insiders, such as Greg Coppola, who told Project Veritas that algorithms “don’t write themselves. We write them to do what we want them to do.” (Google later suspended Coppola.)
by David Burnett - March 29, 2021
An Official Journal Of The NRA | Muzzled—The Breadth of Big Tech’s Strategy to Marginalize Gun Owners
Gun owners are accustomed to legalized discrimination. In some states, merchants still hang signs refusing to do business with us. We’re used and abused by big Hollywood. We’re outcasts in academia.
www.americas1stfreedom.org
Gun owners are accustomed to legalized discrimination. In some states, merchants still hang signs refusing to do business with us. We’re used and abused by big Hollywood. We’re outcasts in academia. Much of the mainstream media refuses to treat us fairly. Some government officials desperately want to take away our freedom. Even a few major corporations have openly called for more restrictions on us.
So when the website AR15.com was suddenly kicked out by its web registrar GoDaddy, who claimed their content “both promotes and encourages violence,” it was hard to be surprised. The thing is, gun owners are often told that, if they want a place to discuss guns, they must build their own websites, but now they must also have web registars that don’t object to them.
“It’s an internet forum, so you get a mix of everything,” said Juan Avila, the site’s co-founder and president. “When emotions run high and people say things they shouldn’t, we have rules we follow. Any threats, even veiled, are gone. This was nothing outside the normal. It just seems like they wanted us gone.”
Avila says they quickly switched registrars, but further attempts to get clarification were ignored. “We’re not holding grudges. They wanted us gone, and we’re happy to be gone.”
The move came on the heels of Big Tech companies moving to terminate the social-media site Parler, a small, but quickly growing competitor to Twitter—this, of course, happened just as Twitter had banned outgoing President Donald J. Trump.
Such crackdowns, of course, aren’t new. Hegemonic companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube have engaged in digital discrimination against America’s millions of gun owners for years.
Social Media
Facebook first announced they would begin limiting online gun sales in 2014, claiming they wanted to “balance” user interests. Two years later, they announced a complete ban on selling firearms on their platform. After another two years, the site expanded the ban to include accessories, such as grips, optics, lights, sights and bipods, as well as mace, BB, airsoft, flare guns and tasers. During President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the site even temporarily halted the sale of benign accessories like holsters, vests and safes.
The policy was then extended to its powerful advertising engine, which severely limited the reach of gun stores and Second Amendment groups. Early enforcement often deleted legitimate firearms business pages, as Facebook insider Chuck Rossi acknowledged. Firearms enthusiasts and advocacy groups also found their pages to be the target of mysterious takedowns—some have been permanent. Others reported “shadow bans” in which companies secretly hid content from audiences. Enforcement initially relied on user reports, which led to anti-gun activists patrolling groups and reporting suspected listings. The site now uses paid staffers and artificial intelligence to do this work.
Instagram applied the same policies, and in 2019 began cracking down on firearms “influencers” on the site (many were women), and deplatforming members who promoted firearms-branded content. The policy crippled the reach of gunsmiths, competitive shooters, hunters, instructors and reviewers by denying them opportunities to get firearm-related sponsorships from trusted brands like Smith & Wesson, Glock or Winchester.
Twitter, which selectively blacked out news being reported from America’s oldest newspaper, the New York Post, to protect then-candidate Joe Biden, proudly prohibits “the promotion of weapons and weapon accessories globally.” (The policy extends to replicas, antiques, paintball/airsoft/BB guns, mounts, grips and knives.)
Pinterest restricts private and commercial firearms sales—or even the display or encouragement of “dangerous activities.” LinkedIn’s policy forbids “promotion, use or sale of” firearms or ammunition.
Search Engines and Apps
Back in 2012, Google began discriminating against firearms in their shopping search results. Their massive ad engine also banned “dangerous items,” and even banned water guns. Initial efforts led to humorous glitches, such as censoring nail and glue guns, as well as the bands Guns N’ Roses and Sex Pistols; it even blocked words like “burgundy” for containing the letters “G-U-N,” though it failed to catch typo queries like “handgnu.”
Microsoft’s search engine Bing also bans ads related to firearms, which later included airsoft, BB and air guns.
As manager of the Android phone platform, Google also removed gun- or ammo-themed apps like GunBroker, Gun.Deals and AmmoSeek. Apple removed its gun chat emoji, replacing it with a squirt gun. Google, Facebook, Samsung, Twitter and Microsoft soon followed.
Apple also required gaming apps to remove images of guns or violence from promotional materials, but kept the game violence itself.
Remember, this is just the publicly acknowledged censorship. While companies hide underlying data on algorithms, researchers have analyzed millions of searches and discovered a significant left-of-center bias from sites like Google. These claims were confirmed by Google insiders, such as Greg Coppola, who told Project Veritas that algorithms “don’t write themselves. We write them to do what we want them to do.” (Google later suspended Coppola.)