On the 15th of January, YouTube decided to change its rules to improve the way they can intervene with certain videos that motivate people to put themselves in danger. The so called “challenge” videos that circulate on the platform owned by Google since 2006 are directly targeted with this new regulation.
The platform has already made it clear to creators that they are not allowed to call upon violence or dangerous actions from their viewers, including in so-called “jokes” or “games”. From now on, dangerous challenges on the video platform will fall under a special category and be banned.
Several challenges have gone viral over the past couple of years. In the “Fire Challenge”, people were meant to cover things in lighter fluid and set it alight in front of the camera. In the deadly “Tide Pod Challenge”, washing tablets were consumed. Many young people put their lives and health at risk just to impress their friends and followers on the internet.
More recently, the Netflix production “Bird Box” has been inspiration for a new challenge. In this challenge, one is meant to do a bunch of different activities whilst blindfolded, just like the characters in the film.
The YouTube Help Forum made an announcement this week, saying that “a lot of jokes and games are being uploaded to YouTube, but we have to make sure that they aren’t dangerous and don’ take it too far.” YouTube made it very clear that they will crack down on dangerous challenges, saying: “From now on, challenges that are considered dangerous or even deadly are banned from the platform. Videos in which extremely dangerous situations or things that could traumatise children are shown should no longer be found on YouTube.”
YouTube has given creators a two-month adjustment period.
