YouTube warns against Bird Box-style prank videos

The Google-owned video platform said any stunts that place people in danger are against site policy.

YouTube has updated its guidelines to ban prank and dangerous challenge videos.

The Google-owned video platform said that while it is a home for light-hearted prank videos, it wanted to reinforce that any stunts that place people in danger are against site policy.

The platform has been home to a variety of challenges – such as the ice bucket challenge to raise money for charity – but one inspired by Netflix show Bird Box – where users are encouraged to carry out a range of activities, including driving, while blindfolded – has caused concerns.

In a new post to the FAQ section on its website, the company said: “YouTube is home to many beloved viral challenges and pranks, like Jimmy Kimmel’s Terrible Christmas Presents prank or the water bottle flip challenge.

“That said, we’ve always had policies to make sure what’s funny doesn’t cross the line into also being harmful or dangerous. Our Community Guidelines prohibit content that encourages dangerous activities that are likely to result in serious harm, and today (we are) clarifying what this means for dangerous challenges and pranks.”

Last year a public awareness campaign was launched in the US after an increase in poisoning reports linked to a video challenge to eat detergent pods went viral on the site.

“We’ve updated our external guidelines to make it clear that challenges like the Tide pod challenge or the Fire challenge, that can cause death and/or have caused death in some instances, have no place on YouTube,” the site said.

“We’ve made it clear that our policies prohibiting harmful and dangerous content also extend to pranks with a perceived danger of serious physical injury.

“We don’t allow pranks that make victims believe they’re in serious physical danger – for example, a home invasion prank or a drive-by shooting prank.

“We also don’t allow pranks that cause children to experience severe emotional distress, meaning something so bad that it could leave the child traumatised for life.”

YouTube is one of several social media and internet services that has been accused of failing to properly police its platform, with legislators in the UK and the US warning they may introduce regulation if firms do not become more proactive.

YouTube said it had worked with child psychologists to help develop its guidelines around the types of pranks which are acceptable for the site.

Videos that showed “the fake death of a parent or severe abandonment or shaming for mistakes” were cited as those that “crossed the line”.

Google fired at least 20 more workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war, bringing the total number of terminated staff to more than 50, a group representing the workers said.

It's the latest sign of internal turmoil at the tech giant centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

Workers held sit-in protests last week at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The company responded by calling the police, who made arrests.

The group organizing the protests, No Tech For Apartheid, said the company fired 30 workers last week — higher than the initial 28 they had announced.

Then, on Tuesday night, Google fired “over 20” more staffers, “including non-participating bystanders during last week’s protests,” said Jane Chung, a spokeswoman for No Tech For Apartheid, without providing a more specific number.

“Google’s aims are clear: the corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them,” Chung said in a press release. “In its attempts to do so, Google has decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 of its own workers.”

Google said it fired the additional workers after its investigation gathered details from coworkers who were “physically disrupted” and it identified employees who used masks and didn't carry their staff badges to hide their identities. It didn't specify how many were fired.

The company disputed the group's claims, saying that it carefully confirmed that “every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings.”

The Mountain View, California, company had previously signaled that more people could be fired, with CEO Sundar Pichai indicati ng in a blog post that employees would be on a short leash as the company intensifies its efforts to improve its AI technology.

A person rides past the Google sign outside the Google offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., on Thursday, April 18, 2024. Google has fired 28 employees who were involved in protests over the tech company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. The workers held sit-ins at the company’s offices in California and New York over Google’s $1.2 billion contract to provide custom tools for Israeli’s military. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)