YouTube banned a controversial kids-oriented channel Toy Freaks earlier this week, citing violations of its policies and community guidelines. The move came amid a major public outcry over child endangerment concerns raised by the contents of the channel run by one Greg Chism and his two daughters which was focused on gross-out humor. Immediately before its removal, the channel was the 68th largest on YouTube, boasting 8.53 million subscribers around the world. The video streaming platform described its decision to ban Toy Freaks as a result of its policies that put a strong emphasis on child safety. In a short statement sent to some media outlets in the aftermath of YouTube’s ban, Mr. Chism thanked the channel’s fans and said that his two daughters have a “bright” future ahead of them, having been able to develop creative skills and self-confidence due to their video activities in recent years. The owner of the channel also dismissed accusations of child endangerment but thanked YouTube for being concerned about his family while also expressing regret that some viewers may have found “inappropriate pleasure” in Toy Freaks videos.
The ban of Toy Freaks arrived shortly after the Google-owned service said it’s starting a global push to weed out inappropriate videos targeted at children that may be understood as being disturbing in nature or otherwise damaging to their development. The initiative was primarily aimed at regulating the YouTube Kids app but also encompassed the company’s online platform as a whole, as evidenced by the removal of Toy Freaks from the most popular video service on the planet. It’s currently unclear whether the firm has any intentions of withholding the remains of the channel’s advertising revenue that was generated in the last period leading up to its ban.
YouTube has been cracking down on illegal and inappropriate content with unprecedented intensity over the course of this year, having experienced a share of controversies, criticism, and outright boycotts over videos posted by its users. The decision to directly ban an immensely popular channel over content deemed inappropriate by a portion of the general public is still unparalleled to any similar move ever made by the firm and seemingly marks a new era of content policing on YouTube.