An American influencer who promotes firearms to more than a million subscribers on his YouTube channel has reportedly suffered virtually no sanctions from the social platform, despite pleading guilty to heavy charges.
“YouTube is a cesspool of violent and irresponsible gun content…Videos that teach civilians military shooting tactics or whose sole purpose is to glorify fully automatic weapons of war go far beyond educational content,” Justin Wagner, senior director of investigations for the gun violence group Everytown for Gun Safety, told NBC News.
On Sunday, the American media revealed that influencer Larry Vickers, 60, would have suffered virtually no sanctions from YouTube after pleading guilty last October to conspiracy to import illegal machine guns, and to having violated US sanctions on Russia by doing business with a company that builds Kalashnikov weapons.
He and his alleged accomplices imported 70 illegal firearms over an 8-year period, prosecutors said. For his crimes, the sixty-year-old could risk up to 20 and 5 years in prison.
However, the man who has more than a million subscribers on his YouTube page likely used the platform to promote some of these illegal weapons, which would match the descriptions of the weapons mentioned in court documents, according to NBC News .
Despite this, it was only after being contacted by the American media a few days ago that YouTube would have suspended the channel from its paid partnership program, meaning that it would no longer be able to earn money on the platform.
However, the videos were all still online on Monday.
This is not the first time that the platform has been criticized for its management of videos promoting firearms: in 2022, Democratic senators have reportedly asked YouTube to explain the presence of videos explaining how to assemble firearms. “Ghost guns” are homemade 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 the parent company, Meta, reportedly indicated on Thursday that he would not be a paid creator on the platforms, and therefore would not be subject to the same standards.
