by Jackson Powers ’20, Staff Writer

Logan Paul, along with his brother, Jake Paul, seems to develop a new controversy every fifteen minutes. But even for YouTube, some actions are just too much. Logan recently released a video of his tour of Japan which included his visit to the infamous Japanese suicide forest, a known hotspot of suicidal activity. During his vlog (video log) of the forest, he encountered a corpse and proceeded to film the body, crack jokes, shoehorn in forced lines about how suicide is wrong, and then edit and upload the video. Logan Paul was reprimanded by YouTube and Google by being dropped from Google Preferred, which only de-monetizes and limits the promotion of his videos. An anonymous student says that “YouTube tries to stay out of controversy, and let the blame fall on the YouTubers alone. This is the first time I’ve heard of YouTube stepping in for any controversial videos. They let the uploaders figure it out for themselves, when there need to be clear boundaries online. If something like this can be uploaded, there are probably issues with the boundaries.” In the end, the fact that Paul still have sixteen million subscribers will allow him receiving money from advertisements, and there is little to no limit on his future earnings. YouTube has had to deal with many controversies in the past year, but seems to be missing the point of punishing online misconduct. It is simply not enough to de-monetize a few videos, and then to issue a public statement reprimanding the YouTuber in question. As Brian Dion ‘20 said, “I don’t find anything wrong with YouTube’s reaction, but they don’t respond quick enough or restrict future videos enough. Children have access to his content.” The point of correcting a mistake is to make sure it never happens again. In the current situation Paul is facing, the biggest backlash he is receiving is from his subscribers. However, most of the sixteen million people still subscribed to him, many of whom are young children, seem to support him no matter what he does. Currently, there is little stopping Paul from stirring another controversy in the near future.

Logan Paul’s lack of punishment reflects a much larger issue. As English teacher Ms. Hamilton says, “It’s not just a YouTube problem, but a social media problem in general. Inappropriate things are put on social media sites all of the time, and social media sites usually say that it wasn’t their fault, and don’t claim responsibility.” YouTube is able to write off this situation as Logan Paul’s mistake, and not their responsibility to clean up. If an incident of this magnitude had involved an actor, for example, the industry would have essentially blacklisted the actor in question. It has happened to Mel Gibson, after his anti-Semitic rant, as well as to Michael Richards, who played Kramer on Seinfeld, after his incredibly racist stand-up comedy sketch. However, Logan Paul essentially employs himself, with little limitation from YouTube.  A terrible move like this would have landed so many others in a difficult situation; however, Logan Paul seems to be doing just fine. If YouTube ever wants to make the site a better place for everyone, meaningful restrictions and punishments must be set in place. Although Paul’s removal from Google Preferred advertising will limit the amount of new subscribers he gains, there are already sixteen million willing to give him far too much support.