YouTube may need to update its rules and restrictions to avoid offensive videos being posted.

Famous YouTuber Logan Paul is under fire after his first video of the new year went viral for all the wrong reasons. The video was filmed in Aokigahara, a national Japanese forest that lies at the base of Mount Fujikawaguchiko. The forest is known as the “sea of trees” and is known as a popular location to commit suicide. According to Mental Floss,  up to 100 people kill themselves in this forest each year.

Paul’s video showed a dead body hanging from one of the trees accompanied with the teasing of suicide. Many have found this disrespectful and triggering. Following the reactions from the video, an apology was posted a few days after. An apology certainly can’t take back the fact that a suicide victim was vaguely disrespected through a public video. Viewers of his apology video were disgusted with the way he was acting. Faking tears and sincerity. There is no way to tell if he is genuinely embarrassed with what he did or if he is just trying to get everyone to calm down.

Over the years, as YouTube videos have evolved, bloggers have been coming up with insane ideas that offend and hurt people physically. Vloggers have turned into pranksters and it’s not funny for the people on the other side of the camera. It’s against YouTube’s rules and regulations to post videos with frontal nudity, pornographic and sexually explicit content, violence and to violate copyright law. The rules are extremely blunt and need to be updated to protect YouTube from videos being posted that are inappropriate and harmful such as Paul’s.

New rules should be added to the existing list of policies and regulations. YouTubers post whatever they want and after the Aokigahara forest video, YouTube needs to recognize the type of power they have to remove traumatizing content like that. After more regulations are enforced, YouTube will be under control and vloggers will have to alter their videos to suit the terms and conditions.

The topic of suicide has a huge effect on certain people and the suicide forest has one of the highest rates in the world for it. More can be done by YouTube to fix its’ regulations and avoid further incidents such as this one.