No, pimple popping videos were not banned by the video streaming platform YouTube.
This claim appeared to have originated in early January 2020 when a YouTube account by the name of Medical Jeopardy shared a video titled, “Pimple Popping Gets Banned! Why YouTube Hates Pimples.”
In a compilation video showing pimples — and blackheads, and cysts, and other cutaneous bumps and lumps — being popped, the original poster claimed that YouTube creators like himself were “struggling with the platform” and that revenue had declined significantly because YouTube thought some “medical videos are too graphic.” The user said that the platform seemed to “want to shut us down” and added that creators were abandoning YouTube because of its stringent publication guidelines. To combat this decline in revenue, Medical Jeopardy asked that viewers visit its Amazon store and listed several links in the video description, including items like Restmore Sleep Aid and Thinergy Weight Loss — none of which were related to pimple popping. The video appeared to be a clickbait ruse to get viewers to look at advertisements for various items on Amazon.
The YouTube channel described itself as:
Medical Jeopardy is presented by the Blackhead King. This channel features boils, blister, blackheads, cysts, acne and dermatology based videos. We will show you some amazing, freakish medical content! For the most part, it will be educational, but it will also be entertaining. So if you like whiteheads, MRSA, trypophobia, and medical trivia, then this is the channel for you! Please subscribe!
And a look through the content shared by Medical Jeopardy, the account that originally posted the video claiming YouTube was banning such content, revealed a long list of pimple popping-like videos.
Not to mention, a YouTube search for “pimple popping” returned thousands of nauseating results. And the account of Dr. Sandra Lee (aka "Dr. Pimple Popper") — whose subscribers totals more than 7.11 million — was still active as of this writing.
A review of the YouTube community guidelines revealed the video streaming platform does not allow content that is deemed harmful or dangerous, violent or graphic, hate speech, criminal, harassing, or misinformation related to COVID-19 — none of which encompasses pimple popping. As such, we have rated this claim as “False.”