YouTube Removes Legendary Meme Video After 14 Years for 'Violence'

An anonymous reader shares a report: You probably don't know Paul Weedon by name, but you've probably seen him get punched in the face. He is the man behind the 'I can't believe you've done this' meme, an old, viral video in which he talks to the camera for a few seconds before someone off camera sucker-punches him mid-sentence. It's a canonical internet video that has spread far and wide since Weedon uploaded it to YouTube 14 years ago, and for reasons that he doesn't understand, yesterday YouTube decided to remove it, citing its violence policies. Weedon has tried appealing YouTube's decision, but the company denied his request.

'I got an email from YouTube late last night informing me that it had been taken down because it had violated their 'violent or graphic content' policy, which seemed a bit mad after all this time,â Weedon told Motherboard. 'I'd maybe understand it if the video was new, but it's been on YouTube for over a decade. At that point you'd have thought they'd have flagged that there was an issue with it and dealt with it.' Weedon said he has no idea why the video was removed now, but he's not worried about it disappearing from the internet.

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