Logan Paul doesn’t deserve to be banned, says YouTube CEO

What will it take for YouTube to ban Logan Paul?

That’s been the question on everyone’s mind. The notorious YouTuber, who faced worldwide backlash after uploading a video on Dec. 31 that featured the body of a man who had recently committed suicide, returned to vlogging on YouTube earlier this month. In Paul’s first vlogs back, the 22-year-old hit dead rats with a Taser and gave his dead fish CPR. Paul’s videos resulted in severe consequences from YouTube, including the removal of any ads on his videos and the cancellation of his YouTube Red projects.

His actions have led to calls for Paul to be banned from YouTube, but speaking at the Code Media conference tonight, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said the company isn’t going to go that far — at least not at this point.

“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].”

YouTube operates under a three-strike system — but even that has issues. YouTube’s community guidelines state that, if a creator “receives three Community Guidelines strikes within a three-month period,” their account will be removed. If a creator receives two community strikes against their channel in three months, they “won’t be able to post new content to YouTube for two weeks.”

There have been instances where channels have been removed entirely regardless of the three-month stipulation — YouTube reportedly removed many harmful accounts targeted at children in late 2017 — but for the most part, Wojcicki pointed to the Community Guidelines as law for the company.

Paul has only received one community strike against his channel, for the video he uploaded on Dec. 31. The other videos, as tasteless as they may be, aren’t enough to violate the company’s code of conduct. Instead, YouTube has removed monetization privileges from his channel and placed an age gate (a tool that prevents users under the age of 18 from watching a video) on the vlog that contained footage of Paul hitting dead rats with a Taser.

“What you think is tasteless is not necessarily what someone else would think is tasteless,” Wojcicki said.

There’s no denying that Paul is still a top creator on the platform. With more than 16 million subscribers and counting, Paul may also be a financial asset to the company — or he will be, once advertising is restored on his videos. YouTube still collects 40 percent of all advertising revenue made from videos, and with millions of eyes on Paul’s every vlog, the company appears to be investing in a surefire moneymaker. The company denied earlier reports that YouTube restored ads on Paul’s channel 72 hours after the suspension was instituted, pointing to a glitch that was causing some users to see ads displayed.

Update: A YouTube representative told Polygon that a few people who watched Paul’s videos did see ads. Although YouTube hasn’t returned monetization privileges to his channel, the videos that featured ads coincided with the company’s advertising guidelines. YouTube’s full statement reads:

In line with our announcement last week, we’re suspending ads on Logan Paul​’s channels. We’re aware that there ​are ​a few instances where people have still seen ads and we’re working to remove them.

The company did not confirm how many community guideline strikes Paul has received at this time.