Austin Jones: YouTube deletes profile of singer guilty of child pornography charges
Written by News on 09/02/2019
YouTube has removed an account belonging to a cappella singer Austin Jones – following his admission to exchanging sexually explicit videos with underage girls.
On 1 February, the 26-year-old pleaded guilty after being accused of making six girls aged 14 and 15 send him X-rated photos and videos between 2010 and 2017.
YouTube had caused controversially by initially refusing to remove Jones’s content.
But on Thursday, the video-sharing site deleted his channel, where he had more than 500,000 subscribers.
Jones’s profiles on other social networks had been deleted promptly after his admission.
The musician had gained fame from uploading a cappella cover versions of hit songs – and most of his fans were teenage girls.
Jones, from Illinois in the US, was arrested in 2017 and charged with two counts of producing child pornography.
He persuaded underage female fans to record videos of themselves dancing sexually, and told one teenager she needed to prove she was “his biggest fan” by sending videos of herself.
Videos of Jones demonstrating how to twerk were later exposed online.
After his guilty plea last week, the judge allowed him to remain free on bail so he can go for psychiatric counselling – but prosecutors had called for him to be taken into custody.
YouTube said it takes claims of sexual misconduct seriously, and that it removes content when a person is convicted of a crime “in some cases”.
Jones was prevented from earning advertising revenues from his videos from the time of his arrest.
(c) Sky News 2019: Austin Jones: YouTube deletes profile of singer guilty of child pornography charges
