Montana attorney general: Democrats, YouTube circumvent democratic process

Montana’s attorney general wants YouTube to restore some videos that the streaming giant removed. Austin Knudsen said some Democratic lawmakers and others in the federal government are pressuring YouTube to routinely remove politically unfavorable speech.

The Montana attorney general sent a letter Wednesday to YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, expressing his concern over YouTube’s removal of videos he called “lawful expressions of a Montanan’s First and Second Amendment rights.”

The videos in question demonstrated how to assemble privately made kit guns, what some refer to as “ghost guns.” YouTube said the videos violated the company’s community standards, which they did, but they were removed only after five Democratic senators sent their own letter to YouTube asking the company to take them down. The senators who sent the letter are Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Ed Markey, D-Mass.

The Washington Examiner interviewed Minnesota resident and YouTuber Jason Schaller. Schaller is a licensed Montana gun dealer and the man behind some of the now removed videos.

“My whole thing is I’m not mad that YouTube took it down,” Schaller said. “I don’t like YouTube’s community guidelines, but I did violate it. What I’m upset about is that five U.S. senators used Senate letterhead to take down videos they didn’t agree with.”

In his letter to YouTube, Knudsen accused the five Democratic senators of circumventing the democratic process to apply political pressure on a private corporation. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Knudsen said this latest situation with YouTube is part of a broader pattern of the federal government using private pressure to infringe on Americans’ rights.

Just this week, The Intercept reported on a years-long effort by the Department of Homeland Security to stop the online flow of what it deemed misinformation. If the Republicans take back the House next week, they have promised a host of investigations into this and similar matters.