Shortly after the controversial vlogger JayStation announced a sudden hiatus from the platform, YouTube ended up confirming that it indeed had demonetized his channel.
Jason “JayStation” Ethier, with a subscriber count north of 5 million subscribers admitted in his “Goodbye” video uploaded on Friday, that he faked his girlfriend’s death for increasing the subscriber count on the joint YouTube channel.
“I really lost who I was as a person in pursuit of success. I don’t know how long I’m gonna take a break for… could be a week, could be a month, could be a year,” said the Toronto-based YouTuber.
While highlighting how he made content about deceased people popular across the platform, JayStation said that he regrets how other channels have picked up the trend.
YouTube confirmed to Reclaim The Net that it revoked monetization on Ethier’s channel just under a week ago, due to his arrest on February 3rd on the grounds of assault and assault with a weapon.
Reclaim The Net reached out to YouTube after noticing that ads were no longer showing on JayStation’s videos.
It is worth noting that YouTube didn’t make the decision based on sustained outrage from viewers and a Change.org petition asking the company to remove him from the platform.
Explaining its policy behind Ethier’s demonetization, YouTube cited a policy which states that the company can review the broader context and impact of a creator’s wrongdoing, even if it doesn’t violate any explicit rules per se.
YouTube also clarified, saying that it only uses this policy in certain rare situations such as this one.
Ethier is also eligible to monetize his videos in the future if he addresses all the issues with his channel, YouTube confirmed.
In his goodbye video, the YouTuber revealed that he had already taken down several offensive videos from his channel. He ended the video by thanking YouTube and expressing his desire to tackle all the punishments head-on.
“Thank you for YouTube. They didn’t delete my channel, but they could have so I’m thankful that they didn’t. Not only did I put my own self in danger, I could’ve put all the other creators in danger, too. What if there was an ‘Adpocalyse’ all because of me? I’d affect so many people just because I’m wreckless, just because I want attention that bad,” said Ethier.
