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Nearly 10-days after the disaster that was YouTuber Logan Paul’s distasteful suicide forest video in Japan, YouTube issued an apology to the public.
The website said that it was not treating the video as a joke and heard all the concerns of people the world-over against Logan Paul.
“Suicide is not a joke, nor should it ever be a driving force for views.”
The website said it expected more of its creators who build their communities (and careers) on the platform and said it was looking at further consequences against Paul.
YouTube said it was looking at further steps to take against Paul while also looking at ways to ensure that such a video is never circulated again.
Logan Paul had uploaded a video he shot in Japan’s Aokigahara forest, also known as the “suicide forest”. The forest is known for the disproportionate number of suicides that occur there, so much so that authorities have put up boards to remind people of their families and to seek help if they are going through hard times or depression instead of taking their own lives.
In the video, which Paul took down after massive backlash, he said he was putting it up to “raise awareness about mental health” and it was a video that “had probably never been put up on the platform”. The video had apparently also been monetised and received millions of views before it was taken down. Paul is a 22-year-old whose target audience is the most impressionable bracket – teenagers. He uploaded a follow-up video to say he was sorry, which has 38 million views (at the time of writing this article) but YouTube creators and celebrities have called for his channel to be shut, since it was not the first time it has uploaded insensitive material.
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