YouTube has finally taken action in response to sustained backlash over YouTube star Logan Paul’s decision to publish footage of a suicide victim whose body he encountered while visiting Japan’s Aokigahara Forest during a controversial trip to the country.
YouTube cuts ties with Logan Paul, promising to evolve in the wake of suicide video backlash
YouTube finally responds to the inflammatory Aokigahara Forest video by apologizing: “We’ve been listening.”
Aja Romano wrote about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they’re considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars.
In a rare lengthy statement posted to its Twitter account this week — a follow-up to a shorter statement released after the incident occurred — YouTube apologized to its user community and promised that changes are on the way, implying that “further consequences” against Paul would be forthcoming.
Those changes have so far included the company’s decision to formally distance itself from Paul: On Wednesday, a YouTube spokesperson announced that the platform will strip Paul’s videos from its top-tier monetization system. Additionally, YouTube has canceled plans to produce a new film starring Paul, and he will not appear in the upcoming season of a YouTube Red series in which he previously starred.
Paul’s Aokigahara Forest video, which contained images of him and several members of his video crew laughing and reacting to their “shocking” discovery of a dead body — in a place that’s notoriously nicknamed the “suicide forest” — reportedly trended on YouTube’s list of top videos for more than 24 hours before Paul decided to delete it. During that time, many YouTube users repeatedly flagged the video for deletion through the site’s content moderation system, to no avail; uproar ensued.
In its latest statement, YouTube did not address its failure to remove the video through moderation. Instead, it noted that it had ultimately levied a content strike against Paul’s account, stating, “The channel violated our community guidelines, we acted accordingly, and we are looking at further consequences.”
Here’s the full statement:
In addition to posting the statement on Twitter, a YouTube spokesperson stated in an emailed press release that the company had not only removed Paul from its exclusive Google Preferred advertising tier but also dropped him from the upcoming fourth season of the YouTube Red series Foursome and halted production of Paul’s films in its “Originals” category, including the upcoming sequel to YouTube Red’s first feature-length thriller, a dystopian sci-fi called The Thinning.
“Our hearts go out to the family of the person featured in the video,” the statement read. “YouTube prohibits violent or gory content posted in a shocking, sensational or disrespectful manner. If a video is graphic, it can only remain on the site when supported by appropriate educational or documentary information and in some cases it will be age-gated. We partner with safety groups such as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to provide educational resources that are incorporated in our YouTube Safety Center.”
