YouTube has released an important policy update banning all pranks and challenges that are deemed dangerous or harmful, just a few days after a teenager accidentally crashed a car while doing a ‘Bird Box challenge’.
The video streaming site is no stranger to these kinds of pranks and challenges. Just a few months back, many people expressed their concern over the ‘Tide Pod challenge’, where several cases of typically younger teens or older children attempted to eat, bite, or chew Tide laundry detergent capsules for the sake of social media. Some were even done by parents who eventually lost custody of their children after ‘pranking’ them with the Tide Pod challenge.
Another similar challenge was the ‘In Your Feelings challenge’, which had people putting their moving car on neutral, jumping out, dancing to Drake’s In Your Feelings, and jumping back into the moving car.
According to Engadget, YouTube claims that its new policy update has nothing to do with the car crash incident, and that it won’t be outright banning all pranks and challenges. Videos that show children hurt or in dangerous situations, regardless of whether they actually are in danger, will, however, be banned. Channels which receive more than 3 strikes in 3 months will have their accounts banned without question.
