YouTube star Logan Paul, who caused an international controversy last week when he made a film inside Aokigahara, known as Japan’s “suicide forest,” has been removed from the lucrative Google Preferred system, while all of his original YouTube Red deals are now on hold.
On January 9, YouTube released a statement acknowledging the outcry, and promising that steps would be taken:
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
Those steps have now been disclosed. First up, Paul has been removed from Google Preferred, a lucrative pipeline that “offers brand advertisers access to the most popular YouTube channels.”
An upcoming YouTube Red movie project that Paul was due to star in, The Thinning: New World Order, has been put on hold. He has also been cut from Foursome, a YouTube Red comedy series.
Paul’s Aokigahara video featured the YouTube star encountering a body inside the forest, which he filmed and uploaded to his channel along with lines like:
This is not clickbait. This is the most real vlog I’ve ever posted to this channel. I think this definitely marks a moment in YouTube history because I’m pretty sure this has never hopefully happened to anyone on YouTube ever. Now with that said: buckle the fuck up, because you’re never gonna see a video like this again!
The video caused an international uproar, and led to a weak apology video in which Paul did little to appear he had understood why he had upset so many people by making light of such a serious and sensitive subject.
Update: – Headline edited to remove the term “ad deal” and better describe the nature of Google Preferred. The body of the post has also been edited to reflect this.
Comments
33 responses to “YouTube Removes Logan Paul From Google Preferred, Puts Other Projects On Hold [Updated]”
Good. Should have happened sooner.
It’s not just that particular video in the forest. Logan Paul also made several videos of himself and his team in Japan, where they were all being disrespectful, stupid and childish. There was a point where the local police had to kick Logan Paul out of a religious temple because of his poor behaviour. He’s an absolute moron.
The one the day before the forest one was atrocious. Someone pointed it out to me so i watched some of it… Just so disrespectful and the fact he has a legion of 12 years olds who look up to him is the worst part about it! They think to act like that when you grow up is cool?
He needs to take some time and maybe some counselling to help him grow up a bit.
You can’t just act like that with no consequence!
Paul’s dad released a video about this whole saga as well…. the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree…
Glad they have actually done something about him.
Hopefully this means the end of Logan Paul articles. Good riddens
*Riddance
*thats the joke
I missed the memo about that one, soz.
On January 10, YouTube released a statement acknowledging the outcry, and promising that steps would be taken:
“blahblahblah”
— YouTube (@YouTube) January 9, 2018
Hmmmmm?
Are you reading this article from outside Australia? Twitter localises its time stamps – it was January 10 in Australia, but may still have been January 9 where you’re located.
I’m reading from Australia so not sure what’s going on there! x_x?
Maybe Twitter wasn’t able to geolocate you. The post was made at 9:50pm UTC on the 9th so it should appear as the 10th for anyone UTC+3 or more. But if they can’t locate you they might just default you to UTC+0.
lol these ‘Youtube Stars”.
never heard of this guy till all these articles but he sounds like a tool so stuff him.
Unless we fix the system that encourages this type of behaviour we’ve achieved nothing. Even if he disappears for good, which seems unlikely, a dozen more similarly childish content creators will just pop up in his absence.
The system is the “internet”… not going to change, even before rhen the fastest way to fame and infamy is to be shocking. Radio TV Politics it works.
For one as part of Youtube “Preffered Program” needs to be an education and culture program. Cause the stuff that Pewdiepie and Logan have done under their program is on youtube for elevating them and not educating them to be professional, ethical and respectful partners.
The system I’m referring to is ad revenue for viewer counts. More views directly gets you more ad revenue – unlike how it is in TV/radio, where more views just gives you more exposure.
TV advertising is also based around viewer counts though. Companies like Nielsen aren’t just surveying/measuring viewer behaviour for the sake of it: that information is used to set the prices charged for the ad slots based on the viewer numbers and composition. Online advertising just gets rid of the uncertainty and time delay inherent in surveying a subset of the viewers.
Which is interesting cause part of the Apocalypse was companies weren’t seeing the online data aligning with public engagement in their products and wanted to go back to Television, Radio and traditional advertising thats more predictable than youtubers.
You’re suggesting we cancel the internet?
Good idea. Sign me up.
Keep the internet, get rid of the people!
Let’s just go back to when the internet was Star Trek and porn.
Can’t wait to dial back into bulletin boards.
I’ve always maintained that the internet would run so much faster if everyone else got off it.
It would also suck a lot less (see article above).
This is just how young pups THINK is fine to act and how to get attention from everyone. I struggle to blame given how society is structured and how people like Dump can get into power who clearly have a similar childish disrespectful attitude!
Is Youtube Red comedy cursed… has any self import BRO finished their title project before doing something fundamentally offensive.
That’d be great… If it wasn’t a blatant lie.
They didn’t do shit. Paul himself pulled the video. Youtube left it standing, and very much untouched.
Meanwhile, they were happily pulling other videos from ‘lesser’ youtubers that were talking about it… Even ones that didn’t show anything on the level of what the original video did.
The underlying issue in their statement is not they removing him from their program for breaking community guidelines, its the fact they put him up on that pedestal in the first place and didn’t hold him to an accountability higher than that the “community guidelines” despite his unprofessional behaviour.
I think the statement is proof that Youtube doesn’t know how to select or foster upper talent on their platform. It surprising how many youtubers still struggle with demonetisation and copyright issues when they have 7+ years on the platform creating constant and quality content… while a jackass brothers get rocketed up to be the faces on Rewind.
I find it funny when Youtube invites content creators to Brandcast (a show where media companies show of content to advertisers) when the content creators have to be asking themselves quietly “So why do I get demonetised randomly without notice”
Youtube just didn’t know how to treat upper talent or foster real creators to expand their platform that demonitisation has driven many of their larger creators to find advertising and revenue outside of youtube cause they prefer to feed talent that foster algorithm hits rather than real content.
If you as Youtube were investing time, money and recommending him to your best sponsors, wouldn’t you be making an effort to manage him as a talent and keep their jackass personalities contained to “onscreen only” performances and staying professional offscreen especially when filming in a foreign country. Its like Youtube only reacts to lose of advertisers 😛
Good.
It’s so so depressing that kids look up to these narcissistic fratboys.
What an absolute shit stain on the human race!
It’s not going to stop him or his moron fans from getting behind him even more than they already are. If anything, they’re just gonna be worse.
The guy is an idiot. Not because of his suicide forest video, but because of every other video where he acts like a disrespectful and disgusting human being and then calls on his legions of followers to model themselves after him. The suicide forest video was just the tip of the iceberg.