If you"re planning on uploading your next YouTube video showing some unsafe stunts or pranks, you may want to hold back. YouTube has updated its policies on dangerous challenges to reflect more stringent actions against videos that may cause harm or encourage people to perform risky activities.
In an FAQ posted on its community support page, the video-sharing service made it clear that challenges including the Tide pod challenge or the Fire challenge "have no place on YouTube." The post didn"t specifically mention the increasingly popular (but stupid and dangerous) Bird Box challenge (inspired by the hit Netflix original movie), but its publication is no coincidence, seeing as it came a few days after a road accident in Layton, Utah, involving a blindfolded teenage driver.
YouTube also maintains that these guidelines also apply to "pranks with a perceived danger of serious physical injury" and pranks that may traumatize children emotionally. These types of pranks may include fake death of a parent, severe abandonment, and shaming for mistakes, according to the updated guidelines.
Video owners are given two months during which YouTube will remove content that violates those policies without issuing a strike against the channel concerned. After that grace period, offending channels will receive a strike, though it remains subject to an appeal. The service will also take down offending videos uploaded prior to these guideline updates.