Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg put YouTube on notice Wednesday for hosting tutorials on how to manufacture deadly weapons and pushing violent content about D.I.Y. guns to school kids.
In a letter to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Bragg noted how in a number of cases before my office, young individuals who are being investigated for ghost gun possession and manufacturing tell a similar story and have explicitly stated they have learned to build ghost guns on YouTube — with some learning how to do so in less than an hour.
The bottom line is that allowing videos on the platform that instruct users on how to create dangerous, difficult-to-trace weapons, and actively targeting children with these videos, leads to the proliferation of ghost guns and the illegal possession of dangerous firearms by our most vulnerable.
Ghost guns are made from kits without serial numbers and sold without background checks, presenting significant issues for criminal investigators. Authorities say they’re not only cheaper to acquire than regular firearms but alarmingly easy to put together. With the right tools, the polymer weapons can be assembled in less time than it takes to cook a turkey.
The DA requested a sitdown with YouTube reps to facilitate changes to its content moderation system to curb the sharp rise of the deadly self-made weapons. He said the site’s algorithm has persistently pushed ghost gun content despite warnings by gun safety groups in recent years, often in violation of their own community guidelines.
Additionally, even for parents actively trying to keep their children safe, there is no way to turn off the YouTube recommendation system, Bragg wrote.
Bragg flagged a 2023 analysis by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that recorded a more than 1,000% increase in the amount of ghost guns submitted to them by law enforcement that were seized at crime scenes since 2017, including 692 used in murder and attempted-murder cases. The federal agency believes its figures are an undercount.
In New York City alone, the NYPD says the use of ghost guns is climbing at frightening rates — cops recovered more than 800 in the last two years compared with 150 in 2020.
In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson said the company prohibits content instructing viewers how to make ghost guns or 3D printed guns, adding, We’ll carefully review any videos the Manhattan DA’s office shares with us. We recognize our work in this area is never done and we remain committed to removing any content that violates our policies.
