Jail Sentence For Popular YouTube Pranksters (bbc.com)

Turns out crossing a line, even for a prank by a YouTube star, can go bonkers. An anonymous reader cites a BBC report: Four members of the controversial Trollstation YouTube channel have been jailed in connection with fake robberies and kidnappings. The group were involved in a fake robbery at London's National Portrait Gallery and a fake kidnapping at Tate Britain in July 2015. The channel, with 718,000 subscribers, has built a reputation for filming staged pranks around the city. A fifth member was imprisoned in March following a bomb hoax.The Crown Prosecution Service's Robert Short said: "The hoaxes may have seemed harmless to them, but they caused genuine distress to a number of members of the public, who should be able to go about their daily business without being put in fear in this way. We hope these convictions send a strong message that unlawful activities such as these will not be tolerated in London."

Comments

Re:Famous last words...

[OzPeter]

If a prank starts making people feel uncomfortable, you've completely missed the mark.

This^^^

I remember the original Candid Camera. The best prank I every saw them pull was getting a large box delivered to an office and that box just fitting through the door. While the delivery people were distracted the camera crew added an insert to the door jam and said that the box was delivered to the wrong office. Now when the delivery guys tried to move the box the couldn't get it out of the office and couldn't understand why. Hilarious.

On the other hand I saw another show which had people sitting in an office. Someone would drop a dummy past the window and before the mark could respond and actor would replace the dummy on the ground. Cue a mark who was concerned/worried about seeing potential death/suicide. Even I felt uncomfortable watching it.