New York: YouTube on Wednesday punished one of its stars, American Logan Paul, over a video that showed a suicide victim in a forest near Mount Fuji — by scrapping two projects and lowering his advertising profile.
The video shows the 22-year-old discovering a body in Aokigahara, a dense woodland at the foot of the mountain known as “the Japanese Suicide Forest,” in a country that has long struggled with some of the highest suicide rates in the developed world.
Japanese social media erupted with indignation over the film, which showed a man who had hanged himself.
Outtakes showing Paul laughing and joking about the incident also stirred anger.
Paul has a massive teenage and preteen fan base.
The video sharing site decided to drop Paul from projects on its YouTube Red subscription platform for original content, a spokesman said Wednesday.
They include a sequel to his film “The Thinning” and a leading role in the fourth season of “Foursome.”
YouTube cuts Logan Paul from projects over Japan suicide victim video
YouTube cuts Logan Paul from projects over Japan suicide victim video
Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF
- Abdullah Al-Swaha said aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age”
DAVOS: Saudi Arabia has accelerated efforts in “energizing the intelligent age,” making the Kingdom the world’s ideal partner in shaping the next wave of the technological age, said the minister of communication and information technology.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom was expanding global partnerships for the benefit of humanity and highlighted both local and international achievements.
“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience. He added the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.
Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.
“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.
In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.
“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.
