An American influencer who promotes firearms on his YouTube channel to more than a million subscribers has reportedly suffered virtually no sanctions from the social platform despite pleading guilty to serious charges.
“YouTube is a cesspool of violent and irresponsible gun content […] “Videos that educate civilians about military shooting tactics or whose sole purpose is to glorify fully automatic weapons of war go far beyond educational content,” said Justin Wagner, senior investigative director for the group Everytown for Gun. Safety Fighting Gun Violence NBC News.
On Sunday, American media revealed that 60-year-old influencer Larry Vickers had suffered virtually no sanctions from YouTube after he nevertheless pleaded guilty last October to conspiring to import illegal machine guns and violating US sanctions against Russia by doing business with one known company that produces Kalashnikov weapons.
According to prosecutors, he and his alleged accomplices imported 70 illegal firearms over a period of eight years. The sixty-year-old faces up to 20 and 5 years in prison for his crimes.
However, according to NBC News, the man, whose YouTube page has more than a million subscribers, likely used the platform to promote some of these illegal weapons, which would match descriptions of the weapons mentioned in court documents.
However, it was only after American media contacted the channel a few days ago that YouTube excluded the channel from its paid partnership program and was therefore no longer able to earn money on the platform.
However, the videos were all still online on Monday.
This is not the first time the platform has been criticized for managing videos promoting firearms: Democratic senators reportedly asked YouTube in 2022 to explain the existence of videos explaining how to assemble firearms. “Ghost guns” are home-made firearms that do not have a serial number.
The influencer is also reportedly followed by 179,000 followers on Instagram and 415,000 on Facebook, although parent company Meta reportedly indicated on Thursday that he was not a paid creator on the platforms and therefore would not be held to the same standards.