After posting yet another controversial video, this one featuring dead rats being Tasered, YouTube star Logan Paul is facing repercussions — the video service has temporarily suspended all ads on his videos.
This means that Paul, 22, won’t be making any money on any videos he uploads to YouTube. The company says his recent pattern of behaviour makes his content “unsuitable for brands,” and it has age-restricted access to all of his videos.
“After careful consideration, we have decided to temporarily suspend ads on Logan Paul’s YouTube channels,” said YouTube in a statement Friday morning. “This is not a decision we made lightly; however, we believe he has exhibited a pattern of behaviour in his videos that makes his channel not only unsuitable for advertisers but also potentially damaging to the broader creator community.”
Paul first stoked the world’s ire at the beginning of the year, when he posted a video shot in Japan’s “suicide forest” that showed the body of a man hanging from a tree.
Then, on Wednesday, he came under fire once again for uploading the video in which he Tasers dead rats outside his Los Angeles mansion.
That same day, Paul made a joke about taking the “Tide Pod challenge“; in a now-deleted tweet, he sarcastically said he would swallow one Tide pod per retweet.
Most comments under the tweet were incredulous, chastizing Paul for not learning anything. His problematic content, from the Japan video to the rats to the Tide pods, all circle around the issues of death and suicide. Of course, his die-hard fan base, the “Logang,” did not falter in their support of their hero. Many of the positive comments were the Logang worried that Paul would do something to harm himself.
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YouTube previously yanked Paul from the Google Preferred premium-advertising program after his Japan video. He was also cut from YouTube Red’s series Foursome at that time.
Paul took a three-week hiatus from YouTube after all the backlash and returned on Jan. 24 with a video about suicide awareness.
YouTube says it’s not censoring creators, but instead allowing advertising partners to have the right to not have offensive, insensitive content run next to their spots. At any time, the company asserts, YouTube creators can opt out of monetizing videos that don’t follow its guidelines.
Paul and his younger brother, Jake, 20, are YouTube and social-media sensations. Jake has approximately 12.8 million subscribers on YouTube, while Paul has over 16 million. His subscriber count has actually increased over the last month.
Paul and his representatives have not yet commented on the ad removal.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the Canadian Suicide Prevention Service (CSPS), available 24/7, at 1-833-456-4566. For more information on suicide and to find help nearest you, visit the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.