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YouTube says it has punished an American blogger over a video that appeared to show the body of a suicide victim.

The blogger, Logan Paul, took the video in the Aokigahara forest, near Japan's Mount Fuji. The area is known as a place where a number of people have taken their lives in recent years.

In the video, Paul and his friends see a man's hanging body from a tree. They react with shock, but also make jokes.

Suicide rates in Japan are among the highest in the world. About 21,000 people there commit suicide each year, according to Japanese government estimates.

YouTube said in a statement that it has removed Logan Paul's channels from Google Preferred, which presents top YouTube videos. The company offers those videos to advertisers.

YouTube also said it will not include Paul in the new season of a web-based series called "Foursome." And it said his new videos are no longer being published.

Paul's YouTube channel has more than 15 million subscribers. He has more than 4 million followers on Twitter. The video filmed in the Japanese forest received over 6 million views before Paul took it down.

YouTube bars violent content that is shown in a shocking or disrespectful way, the company says. It issued a "strike" against Paul's channel for violating its community rules after the video was published.

Paul announced earlier this month he was taking a break from making YouTube videos "to reflect." He has also published several apology videos and posts on social media.

But Paul continues to face strong criticism for the apparent suicide victim video as well as other video blogs he published during his visit to Japan.

I'm Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

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commit - v. to do (something that is illegal or harmful)

channel - n. a television or radio station

reflect - v. to think carefully about something