YouTube recently updated its guidelines to ban challenges, pranks, and dares that cause severe emotional distress for kids or ones that make victims feel like they’re in serious physical danger, such as the Bird Box challenge (via Engadget).
[YouTube Moving Away from Scripted Programming]
Bird Box and Beyond
The guidelines come after popular challenges that imitate a Netflix movie called Bird Box. Characters in the movie wear blindfolds and have to navigate the world because of monsters. In one case, while attempting the Bird Box challenge, a teenager crashed a car.
Yes you read that correctly. Someone blindfolded themselves and decided to drive down the road. Luckily no one was hurt. Many people are also familiar with the infamous Tide Pod challenge as well.
In response, YouTube is threatening strikes against channels that have video thumbnails or web links that violate the new policy, even if the video itself is innocent. Additionally, channels with multiple strikes can lose access to custom thumbnails. If a channel gets three strikes in 90 days, the users will lose their accounts.