YouTube’s CEO Says Banning Logan Paul From The Site Permanently Isn’t Justified

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Logan Paul has had a tough go at it these past couple months. His head-scratching Japanese suicide forest video blew up to the point where he had to endure the Good Morning America apology routine. Instead of flying under the radar until the internet found another moron to direct its vitriol, the 22-year-old decided to taser a dead rat, resulting in YouTube suspending all ads from Paul’s channel.

The forfeiting ads from YouTube are just a drop in a bucket for Paul, who earned $12.5 million last year alone. He certainly is not crying in his $6.55 million, 8,700 square-foot California mansion.

Paul’s bizarre “pattern of behavior,” as YouTube calls it, does not justify kicking the former Vine star off the platform entirely, claims YouTube CEO and former A-Rod flame Susan Wojcicki.

Via The Verge:

“He hasn’t done anything that would cause those three strikes,” Wojcicki said. “We can’t just be pulling people off our platform … They need to violate a policy. We need to have consistent [rules]. This is like a code of law…

“What you think is tasteless is not necessarily what someone else would think is tasteless,” she said. “We need to have consistent laws, so that in our policies, so we can apply it consistently to millions of videos, millions of creators.”

YouTube has a “three strikes” policy that can result in a person’s account being deleted if they repeatedly violate its rules.

I hate to say this but I’m in Logan Paul’s corner on this one. The internet serves as a necessary watchdog for people’s behavior and there should be corresponding consequences. The problem is that the internet has a tendency to pile on the virtue signaling, to roll the justice snowball down the hill, to cater to the person most offended. Do I have trouble sleeping at night knowing Logan Paul makes more money than I’ll ever sniff? Maybe. Do I think he should be silenced for a couple 22-year-old mistakes? Unfortunately for my self-esteem, I do not.

[h/t Uproxx]

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.