Violent or gory content intended to shock or disgust viewers, or content encouraging others to commit violent acts, is not allowed on YouTube.
If you believe that 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
Don't post content on YouTube if it fits any of the descriptions noted below.
Violent or graphic content:
- Inciting others to commit violent acts against individuals or a defined group of people.
- Fights involving minors.
- Footage, audio or imagery involving road accidents, natural disasters, war aftermath, terrorist attack aftermath, street fights, physical attacks, immolation, torture, corpses, protests or riots, robberies, medical procedures or other such scenarios with the intent to shock or disgust viewers.
- Footage or imagery showing bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit, with the intent to shock or disgust viewers.
- Footage of corpses with severe injuries, such as severed limbs.
Animal abuse content:
- Content in which humans coerce animals to fight.
- Content in which a human maliciously mistreats an animal and causes it to experience distress outside of traditional or standard practices. Examples of traditional or standard practices include hunting or food preparation.
- Content in which a human unnecessarily keeps an animal in poor conditions outside of traditional or standard practices. Examples of traditional or standard practices include hunting or food preparation.
- Content that glorifies or promotes serious neglect, mistreatment or harm towards animals.
- Content that shows an animal rescue that is staged and puts the animal in harmful scenarios.
- Graphic content that features animals and intends to shock or disgust.
Dramatised or fictional content:
- Dramatised or fictional footage of content prohibited by these guidelines in which the viewer is not given enough context to understand that the footage is dramatised or fictional.
Note that we do not allow the following kinds of content even if there's educational, documentary, scientific or artistic context provided:
- Violent physical sexual assaults (video, still imagery or audio).
- Footage filmed by the perpetrator during a deadly or major violent event, in which weapons, violence or injured victims are visible or audible.
Please note that this is not a complete list.
Bear in mind that this policy also applies to videos, video descriptions, thumbnails, comments, live streams and any other YouTube product or feature. Please note that these policies also apply to external links in your content. This can include clickable URLs and verbally directing users to other sites in the video, as well as other forms.
Educational contentWe may allow the kinds of violent or graphic content noted above in some cases in educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content. This is not an excuse to upload content meant to shock or disgust – or encourage others to commit violent acts – and we do not make these exceptions for certain kinds of content, like footage of violent physical sexual assault. For educational content containing the kinds of violent or graphic content noted above, this context must appear in the images or audio of the video itself. Providing it in the title or description is insufficient.
For educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content that has adult material or graphic violence, we may take into account official third-party industry ratings to decide whether the content may remain on YouTube. Content that follows our policies but isn't appropriate for all audiences is age-restricted. Age-restricted content isn't viewable to anyone who is under 18 years of age or signed out.
We may apply an age-restriction rather than remove violent or graphic content if that content provides enough context to understand it. For example, content showing victims' injuries in a road accident may be removed, but we may age-restrict that same content if presented with news coverage that explains the situation and context. For the educational use of violent or graphic content, this context must appear in the images or audio of the video itself. You can learn more about the importance of context here.
We also consider public interest when deciding whether content should be removed or age-restricted. For example, we may age-restrict graphic or violent content documenting warzones.
We may also age-restrict fictional violence when it contains graphic scenes, such as people being dismembered or decapitated, or shows human corpses with these severe injuries. Generally, we allow dramatised violence when the content or metadata lets us know that the content is fictional or when it's apparent from the content itself, such as animated content or video games.
We consider the following when deciding whether to age-restrict or remove content. Note that this isn't a complete list:
- Whether violent or gory imagery is the focus of the video. For example, the video focuses solely on the most graphically violent part of a film or video game.
- Whether the title, description, tags or other data show an intent to shock or disgust viewers.
- Whether violent imagery or audio has been blurred, masked or obscured.
- The amount of time that the violent images or audio is in the content.
- Whether there's context that lets viewers know that the imagery is dramatised or fictional. For example, through info in the video, title or description.
- Whether the violence is part of a religious or cultural practice and the uploader gives viewers that context.
- Whether the content shows the killing of an animal via traditional or standard practices for hunting, religious practice or food preparation.
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 violence.
- Actual playground fights between minors. We may allow content if minors are only playfighting and that is evident to viewers.
- Beatings or brawls outside the context of professional or professionally supervised sporting events.
More examples
Violent or graphic content- Medical procedure footage in which the content focuses on open wounds and provides no education or explanation to viewers.
- Footage of crimes such as violent robberies that provide no education or explanation to viewers.
- Mobile phone, dash cam or closed-circuit TV footage showing an injured or killed party 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!'.
Here are more examples of content that's not allowed on YouTube:
- Dog fighting, cockfighting or other coerced animal fighting where humans force animals to attack each other. We do allow content that shows animals fighting in the wild, like in a nature documentary.
- Content that shows animal suffering, neglect or mistreatment to shock the viewer or glorify the abuse and doesn't give enough educational, documentary, scientific or artistic context.
- Bullfighting with bulls being harmed, like swords in the bull.
- Hunting using non-standard practices, like bombs or poison.
- The staged rescue of animals where the animals are intentionally harmed or placed in dangerous scenarios for dramatic effect.
The above list isn't complete.
Remember these examples are just some examples and don't post content if you think that it might violate this policy.
What happens if content violates this policy
If your content violates this policy, we will remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If we can't verify that a link that you post is safe, we may remove the link. Note that violative URLs posted within the video itself or in the video's metadata may result in the video being removed.
If this is the first time that you've violated our community guidelines, you'll most likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. You will have the chance to take policy training to allow the warning to expire after 90 days. The 90-day period starts from when the training is completed, not when the warning is issued. However, if the same policy is violated within that 90-day window, the warning will not expire and your channel will be given a strike. If you violate a different policy after completing the training, you will get another warning.
If you get three strikes within 90 days, your channel will be terminated. Learn more about our strikes system.
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. We may prevent repeat offenders from taking policy training in the future. Learn more about channel or account terminations.