As an airsoft website, Popular Airsoft also posts news and developments from the firearms industry given that both industries are linked. Airsoft grew out of the need of firearms enthusiasts in countries where guns are either banned or heavily regulated; and most, if not all, of airsoft gun external features are based on real steel designs. Also, a good number of airsoft players are firearms enthusiasts too.

Thus, when there are developments that affect the firearms industry, such as policies to regulate them by both the public and private sector, there is a possibility that airsoft will get affected. We have seen proposed regulations from around the world that sometimes lump airsoft with firearms, and now in the private sector, we saw Facebook putting restrictions on private firearms sales that affected airsoft. Now, YouTube, the largest video sharing website in the world may just have turned off the monetization faucet that is called advertising on gun-related channels.

According to The Firearm Blog, which we regularly monitor for its excellent content, YouTube has flagged videos on the site as restricted material, making them ineligible for advertising. Creating videos, especially by the well-known firearms channels, are not cheap, and they spend time and money to create proper videos for their audiences. Demonetizing these channels means turning off their means of supporting their operations and can affect the quality of their videos as well as put smaller firearms channels at a disadvantage.

YouTube is cracking down on offensive content, given the recent controversy in which it was accused of displaying ads on extremist videos, leading to big advertisers pulling their ads totally from the social media site. Thus, they are broadening what they deem to be “restricted” content and those determined to be showing such content, their videos will not be shown to viewers who have set their settings to block offensive material and will not be allowed to monetize from advertisements.

Gun channels may be affected as they may just fall on what YouTube considers as content inappropriate for advertising:

So far, we have not heard from airsoft YouTube channels if they are affected by this crackdown (the Popular Airsoft channel does not derive revenues from YouTube). But there is a possibility that they may just be affected if YouTube casts its net even wider as it continues its crackdown on offensive content.