YouTube Issues Statement on Logan Paul Video After a Week of Silence

YouTube has issued a statement via their Twitter account about the recent Logan Paul video which featured the dead body of a suicide victim. In the statement, released a week after the video itself, YouTube claims no responsibility for the video and claims to have “acted accordingly.”

In a thread of tweets published to the company’s Twitter account, YouTube finally addressed the video published by YouTube star Logan Paul in which Paul came across the body of a suicide victim in the Japanese “suicide forest.” In the video, Paul filmed the hanging body of the man and made multiple jokes about the suicide leading to widespread outrage across the internet and Paul being forced to take down the video and issue an apology. Shortly after the video was removed, a report was released claiming that YouTube may have been aware of the content of Paul’s video before it was promoted manually to the trending videos section.

One of YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers” took to Twitter to reveal that Paul’s video had been reported by viewers but was reviewed and approved by the YouTube Trusted Flaggers team. YouTube then proceeded to remove any reuploads of Paul’s video after the YouTube Star deleted it.

https://twitter.com/TrustedFlagger/status/948244398545960960

YouTube has now published an “open letter to your community,” via Twitter:

An open letter to our community:

Many of you have been frustrated with our lack of communication recently. You’re right to be. You deserve to know what's going on.

— YouTube (@YouTube) January 9, 2018

Like many others, we were upset by the video that was shared last week.

— YouTube (@YouTube) January 9, 2018

Suicide is not a joke, nor should it ever be a driving force for views. As Anna Akana put it perfectly: "That body was a person someone loved. You do not walk into a suicide forest with a camera and claim mental health awareness."

— YouTube (@YouTube) January 9, 2018

We expect more of the creators who build their community on @YouTube, as we’re sure you do too. The channel violated our community guidelines, we acted accordingly, and we are looking at further consequences.

— YouTube (@YouTube) January 9, 2018

It’s taken us a long time to respond, but we’ve been listening to everything you’ve been saying. We know that the actions of one creator can affect the entire community, so we’ll have more to share soon on steps we’re taking to ensure a video like this is never circulated again.

— YouTube (@YouTube) January 9, 2018

YouTube claims that they “acted accordingly” in relation to the video and were looking at “further consequences.” However, it was not YouTube that removed the video from the platform, it was Paul himself who removed the video under intense pressure from his peers. Many have taken issue with YouTube’s version of events, including popular YouTube Star Philip DeFranco who posted a video to Twitter where he called YouTube’s statement “revisionist history bullsh*t,” the full video from DeFranco can be seen below.

Dear @Youtube,

Are you lying or are you that detached from reality? pic.twitter.com/aVU5jmYQO9

— Philip DeFranco (@PhillyD) January 9, 2018

So far, Logan Paul seems to have received no penalty for posting the video. The video itself was not monetized, but that was through Paul’s own choice, not YouTube’s, whether YouTube will enact “further consequences” in the coming days is yet to be seen.

Those keeping an eye on YouTube censorship are concerned about the end of the statement, which states that YouTube wants to make sure “a video like this is never circulated again.”