Beauty YouTuber James Charles has had his YouTube account demonetised after allegations surfaced that he sexted minors.
Charles has more than 25.5 million subscribers on YouTube, where he gained popularity for his makeup videos. He is worth an estimated US$22 million.
Since February, a number of boys under the age of 18 have accused Charles of sexting with them. Charles, who is 21, made a video in early April titled “holding myself accountable”, which addressed two of the accusations. He said that the interactions “should never have happened” and that the boys told him they were 18.
One of the boys then alleged that this claim was false as his age was in the bio of his TikTok account, where he said the messages were exchanged.
The allegations have impacted Charles’ popularity according to a poll by Insider, who found that his favourability among audiences decreased by seven per cent after the story came to light. Beauty brand Morphe has also ended their collaborations with him.
Now, YouTube has announced that Charles will no longer be able to make money by running adverts on his channel.
According to YouTube, and first reported by Insider, Charles violated the ‘creator responsibility policy’.
YouTube’s creator responsibility policy says that, “part of being a creator means that you’re a member of a large and influential global community. We look to you to help us preserve and protect this unique and vibrant group.”
“Violating these guidelines may result in your videos being deleted, your channel receiving strikes, or for serious or repeated violations, your channel being restricted or even terminated.”
“Remember that as YouTube creators, you should remain responsible both on and off the platform. If we see that a creator’s on- and/or off-platform behavior harms our users, community, employees, or ecosystem, we may take action to protect the community.”
YouTube has used the demonetisation feature against other popular users accused of wrongdoing. Shane Dawson, a popular YouTuber with a combined 34.6 million subscribers across three channels, had his accounts demonetised for his behaviour both in old videos and offline.
Videos that Dawnson had posted included him portraying racist stereotypes, using the N-word, and pretending to masturbate to a picture of singer Willow Smith, who was underage at the time.
YouTuber Logan Paul also had his account temporarily demonetised after an infamous incident where he filmed a recently deceased person in the Japanese Aokingahara forest, know colloquially as the ‘suicide forest’.
