Recently, YouTube had been showing a graphic ad about animal abuse, that technically went against the guidelines of their own website. It seems that the video has been made private so it can no longer be seen. According to u/UtgardCastle on Reddit, “the video is silent until 10 seconds in, and audio sounds heavily edited, like normal pig squeals with noise, and the images are just blurry static, and a (very quick) shot of what looks like a dead chick, and a pig chewing on a fence/pen wire.” If for whatever reason you see the ad, you can report it for “violent or repulsive content.” The ad could have scared younger children or anyone with anxiety or PTSD. According to YouTube Help, their rule against violent content is, “Violent or gory content intended to shock or disgust viewers, or content encouraging others to commit violent acts are not allowed on YouTube” Furthermore, You can’t upload “Content where there is infliction of unnecessary suffering or harm deliberately causing an animal distress,” or “Content where animals are encouraged or coerced to fight by humans.”

I asked a student in our school who makes YouTube videos and wants to remain anonymous if he’s had any experience with this, he replied with, “I actually confronted this one kid who was posting those types of videos. In October, this YouTuber called Derick Draws who mainly made storytime animations were posting terrible videos of him and other people brutally killing goldfish. The comment section was riddled with disapproval and people who wanted to know why he was doing this. Some of the videos included taking them out of their tanks, putting them in blenders, etc. So, I realized that another YouTuber that I know named Mason was friends with Derrick and I decided to ask him if he had seen it. Mason had yet to watch them so I asked if he wanted links, he did. I sent the videos and needless to say, we were both pretty upset about it. I then did a little more research along with Mason and this other British YouTuber named Tom. We found his Discord, I talked to him about it and then he removed the videos and quit YouTube shortly after.” Hopefully, YouTube will enforce their rules better in 2020.