Disney Drops Pewdiepie Over Anti-Semitic Jokes

Disney Drops Pewdiepie Over Anti-Semitic Jokes

Maker Studios, a division of Disney, just severed their deal with YouTube megastar Pewdiepie. They pointed to a (now-deleted) January 11 video in which Pewdiepie paid two men to hold up a sign that read, “Death To All Jews.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pewdiepie had editorial independence in his deal, but this was a bridge too far.

“Although Felix has created a following by being provocative and irreverent, he clearly went too far in this case and the resulting videos are inappropriate,” said a spokeswoman for Maker Studios.

YouTube, meanwhile, declined to comment on Pewdiepie’s videos. However, their policy toward this kind of thing is more lenient than Disney’s. “If content is intended to be provocative or satirical, it may remain online,” they said. “If the uploader’s intent is to incite violence or hatred it will be removed.”

According to WSJ, Pewdiepie has posted nine videos that include anti-Semitic content since August. Three, the one from January 11 and two others from January 17 and January 22, have been taken down. One of those depicted a man dressed as Jesus Christ saying, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.”

In the “Death To All Jews” video, Pewdiepie, who hired the men via freelancer site Fiverr, reportedly said, “I didn’t think they would actually do it.” The Indian men later apologised in a video, saying, “We really don’t know what the message meant when making the video.” All three were banned from Fiverr. Pewdiepie pleaded for the service to un-ban the two men, but it doesn’t appear to have been effective.

Pewdiepie is a hugely prominent public figure no matter how you slice it, and his recent gaffes have prompted reactions from all corners of the internet. People on YouTube came to his defence, believing he was simply telling un-PC “jokes”. However, he also received support from places like neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which reportedly changed its name to “The world’s #1 PewDiePie fansite” late last month.

In a recent Tumblr post, Pewdiepie addressed the controversy. Here’s what he wrote:

I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes.

I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.

As laughable as it is to believe that I might actually endorse these people, to anyone unsure on my standpoint regarding hate-based groups: No, I don’t support these people in any way.

Jonathan Vick, an associate director of the Anti-Defamation League who spoke to WSJ, however, summed up the real world consequences of Pewdiepie’s actions nicely. “Just putting it out there brings it more and more into the mainstream,” he said.

Now Pewdiepie will have to face some consequences of his own.


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


79 responses to “Disney Drops Pewdiepie Over Anti-Semitic Jokes”