Violent or graphic content policies - YouTube Help

The safety of our creators, viewers, and partners is our highest priority. We look to each of you to help us protect this unique and vibrant community. It’s important you understand our Community Guidelines, and the role they play in our shared responsibility to keep YouTube safe.

Take the time to carefully read the policy below

. You can also check out

this page

for a full list of our guidelines.

Violent or gory content intended to shock or disgust viewers is not allowed on YouTube. Also, content that encourages others to commit violent acts is not allowed.

If you believe anyone is in imminent danger, you should get in touch with your local law enforcement agency to report the situation immediately.

If you find content that violates this policy, report it. Instructions for reporting violations of our Community Guidelines are available here. If you've found a few videos or comments that you would like to report, you can report the channel.

What this policy means for you

If you're posting content

Violent acts:

Inciting others to commit violent acts against individuals or a defined group of people.Encouraging others to go to a particular place to commit violence, to perform violence at a particular time.Targeting specific individuals or groups with violence.Beatings or brawls outside the context of professional or professionally supervised sporting events.Fights involving minors. You can learn more about Child safety here.Actual school yard fights between minors. We may allow content if minors are pretend fighting and that is evident to viewers.

Graphic content:

Footage, audio, or imagery involving any of the following: Road accidentsNatural disastersWar aftermathTerrorist attack aftermathStreet fightsPhysical attacksSexual assaultsImmolationTortureCorpsesProtests or riotsRobberiesMedical procedures Other such scenarios with the intent to shock or disgust viewersFootage or imagery of bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit, with the intent to shock or disgust viewers.Footage of corpses with massive injuries, such as severed limbs.

Animal abuse or violence:

Content that includes a human maliciously causing an animal to experience suffering when not for traditional or standard purposes such as hunting or food preparation.Content featuring animal rescue that has been staged and places the animal in harmful scenarios.Content where animals are encouraged or coerced to fight by humans.

Dramatized or fictional footage:

Content featuring anything listed above where the viewer is not given enough context to understand that the footage is dramatized or fictional.

Note that this is not a complete list.

Keep in mind that this policy also applies to videos, video descriptions, thumbnails, comments, live streams, and any other YouTube product or feature.

Age-restricted content

If your content includes any of the above, but gives enough context to understand it, we may apply an age-restriction rather than remove it. For example, content showing survivors’ injuries in a road accident may be removed. But, we may age-restrict that same content if it’s news coverage that explains the situation and context. For educational content that includes violence, this context must appear in the images or audio of the video itself.You can learn more about the importance of context here.

We consider the following when deciding whether to age-restrict or remove content:

Whether violent or gory imagery is the focus of the video, such as focusing solely on the most graphically violent part of a film or video gameWhether the content portrays the killing of an animal for the purposes of hunting, religious slaughter, or food preparation.Whether the title, description, tags, or other data indicate an intent to shock or disgust viewers.Whether violent imagery or audio has been blurred, masked, or obscured.The amount of time the violent images or audio is in the content.If context lets viewers know that the imagery is dramatized or fictional. For example, by saying so in the video, title, or description.If the violence is part of a religious or cultural practice and the viewer is given that context.Whether content showing humans causing an animal to suffer is uploaded in a way to expose that abuse.

Note that this is not a complete list. You can learn more about age-restricted content here.

This policy applies to videos, video descriptions, comments, live streams, and any other YouTube product or feature.

Examples

Here are some examples of content that’s not allowed on YouTube.

Encouraging others to go to a particular place to commit violence, to perform violence at a particular time, or to target individuals or groups with violenceActual schoolyard fights between minors. We may allow content if minors are only play fighting and that is evident to viewers.Beatings or brawls outside the context of professional or professionally supervised sporting events.

More examples

Violent, graphic, or shocking content

The following types of content are not allowed on YouTube. This is not a complete list. Note: there are no exceptions for this example, even if there's educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context in your content.

Medical procedure footage where the content focuses on open wounds and offers no education or explanation to viewers.Footage of violent crimes such as robberies or rape being committed that offer no education or explanation to viewers.Phone, dash cam, or closed circuit TV footage showing the injured or killed in a road accident accompanied by titles such as “Crazy accident” or “Warning: Lots of blood.”Videos of beheadings. One-sided assaults with titles like "Watch this guy get beat-up!"Footage filmed by the perpetrator during a deadly or major violent event, in which any of the following are visible or audible: weapons, violence, or injured survivors. Animal abuse content

Animal abuse refers to content depicting the malicious infliction of physical harm causing an animal or group of animals to experience suffering. This means that there’s no purpose to the depiction of animal suffering other than to shock or disgust. We may make exceptions for content depicting generally accepted practices like: hunting, trapping, pest abatement, food preparation, medical treatment, or animal slaughter that depict harm on an animal or group of animals.

The following types of content are not allowed on YouTube:

Dog fighting, cockfighting, or other videos in which human onlookers are forcing animals to attack each other. We do allow content featuring animals fighting in the wild, such as in a nature documentary.Non-educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic content that shows animal suffering for the purposes of shock.Bullfighting with bulls being harmed (such as swords in the bull).Hunting using illegal practices like bombing or poison.Content depicting animal rescue that has been staged and places the animal in harmful scenarios.

This is not a complete list.

Remember these are just some examples, and don't post content if you think it might violate this policy.

What happens if content violates this policy

If your content violates this policy, we’ll remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you’ll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. If it’s not, we may issue a strike against your channel. If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel will be terminated. You can learn more about our strikes system here.

We may terminate your channel or account for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. We may also terminate your channel or account after a single case of severe abuse, or when the channel is dedicated to a policy violation. You can learn more about channel or account terminations here.

Would you rather learn about our Community Guidelines through videos and quizzes? Check out our

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