The whole video upload controversy surrounding him filming a suicide victim in Japan is still following the YouTuber Logan Paul. Even though he took a break and came back to what seemed like a change of heart, it appears that YouTube doesn’t think he’s changed. Citing his “recent pattern of behavior,” YouTube announced this morning that it has “temporarily suspended” ads on Paul’s channels. This puts a stop to Paul’s income stream that’s estimated to be worth more than a million dollars a month.
In a statement to The Jolt Journal, a YouTube spokesperson said: “After careful consideration, we have decided to temporarily suspend ads on Logan Paul’s YouTube channels. This is not a decision we made lightly, however, we believe he has exhibited a pattern of behavior in his videos that makes his channel not only unsuitable for advertisers, but also potentially damaging to the broader creator community.”
Even though Paul took a break from daily vlogging, it doesn’t seem like that was enough to convince anyone, especially YouTube. Due to a number of incidents that accumulated, YouTube decided to go this route to punish Paul where it really hurts: ad revenue.
YouTube says that his infractions include trying to monetize a video that violated the company’s advertiser-friendly guidelines, encouraging his followers to participate in the Tide Pod challenge, and in a recent video, taking a fish out of his pond to jokingly give it CPR and also tasering a dead rat. This type of behavior is unacceptable and thus YouTube acted accordingly.
In response to Logan Paul’s recent pattern of behavior, we’ve temporarily suspended ads on his channels.
— YouTube Creators (@ytcreators) February 9, 2018
YouTube’s suspension of Paul’s ad revenue is a direct concern the company is expressing not just about Paul’s moral development, but how his actions may cause controversy for advertisers. YouTube’s guidance on this is clear: “If you monetize content that violates our guidelines, you may lose access to monetization features.”
By suspending Paul’s ads on his channels, YouTube is effectively giving him the harshest punishment can bring so far. Previous to suspending his ads, YouTube removed Paul from its lucrative Google Preferred platform, which gives advertisers easy access to the most popular YouTubers, and also suspended his content deals with paid streaming service YouTube Red.
