Logan Paul video: YouTube responds to 'suicide forest' footage that showed a dead man's body

The video showed the famous YouTuber laughing and joking while standing next to a corpse

YouTube has responded after one of its biggest stars used it to show footage of a dead man's body to millions of people.

The controversial video showed star Logan Paul entering a "suicide forest" in Japan. While there, he came across the body of a man who had died by suicide – and proceeded to joke and laugh in front of the corpse, before uploading explicit footage of the events to his YouTube channel.

Mr Paul has since apologised, in a written statement on Twitter that was followed up by a video on the same service as well as on his YouTube channel. But criticism has also been levelled at YouTube, which appeared to leave the video up for some time and allowed it to be featured in its "trending" section.

As well as allowing the video to remain, Mr Paul is one of YouTube's most popular users and has made an original, full-length film with the company.

The site has now said that the video did break the rules and that it would remove any posts that were of a similar nature. It bans "violent or gory content", it said, specifically that which is posted "in a shocking, sensational or disrespectful manner".

"Our hearts go out to the family of the person featured in the video," a YouTube spokesperson said. "YouTube prohibits violent or gory content posted in a shocking, sensational or disrespectful manner. If a video is graphic, it can only remain on the site when supported by appropriate educational or documentary information and in some cases it will be age-gated. We partner with safety groups such as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to provide educational resources that are incorporated in our YouTube Safety Center."

Some similarly graphic content is allowed on YouTube, particularly if it is posted for educational or artistic reasons. But in cases of particularly gory or otherwise inappropriate videos, it applies an age restriction that means that only adult users can watch it.

The company has a series of rules intended to stop people from uploading such content. If a video is removed from a channel it will receive a strike, making it more likely that the channel will be punished in future.

In the case of Mr Paul's video, he appears to have taken it down himself as criticism began. It's not clear whether the same rules will apply in his case.