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Disney, YouTube Cut Ties With PewDiePie, Top YouTube Submitter, Over Anti-Semitic Videos (techcrunch.com)
jo7hs2 writes: Disney's Maker Studios has cut ties PewDiePie, the YouTube submitter with 53 million subscribers, over anti-Semitic clips the submitter released earlier in the year. The clips, three videos published in January, have since been removed from the channel. According to TechCrunch, "They included one skit in which [Felix Kjellberg, PewDiePie's real name] paid a Sri Lanka-based group of men to hold up a sign that read 'Death to All Jews,' while another featured a clip of a man dressed as Jesus saying that 'Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.' Kjellberg used freelance job finding site Fiverr for both clips. He argued that he wasn't serious with either and instead wanted to show the things people will do for money." A spokesperson for Maker Studios, which was acquired by Disney in 2014, told the Wall Street Journal, "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." Writing on his Tumblr blog, Kjellberg said the purpose of the examples was "to show how crazy the modern world is, specifically some of the services available online." He continued, "I picked something that seemed absurd to me -- That people on Fiverr would say anything for 5 dollars. 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."
UPDATE 2/14/17: YouTube has also cut ties with Kjellberg. A YouTube representative confirmed to Business Insider that the company has canceled its YouTube Red original show starring Kjellberg. Business Insider reports: "Kjellberg's show, 'Scare PewDiePie,' was a YouTube original accessible through the company's subscription service, YouTube Red. The show was about to premiere its second season. YouTube is also removing Kjellberg from Google's preferred advertising program, which helps the platform's most popular personalities attract bigger advertisers."
UPDATE 2/14/17: YouTube has also cut ties with Kjellberg. A YouTube representative confirmed to Business Insider that the company has canceled its YouTube Red original show starring Kjellberg. Business Insider reports: "Kjellberg's show, 'Scare PewDiePie,' was a YouTube original accessible through the company's subscription service, YouTube Red. The show was about to premiere its second season. YouTube is also removing Kjellberg from Google's preferred advertising program, which helps the platform's most popular personalities attract bigger advertisers."
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'm having a hard time figuring out whether it was the author, of one of our less literate editors, though...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'd say there's a fair chance Mr. Kjellberg *is* Jewish [...]
No.
'Berg' is very common in Swedish surnames. It translates as 'mountain'.
Two thoughts. When you cater to whims of the easily offended, they do not become less offended, they find more things to be offended about.
Y'all easily offended just clean up your little corner of the room, arranging everything meticulously and making it perfect and pure - while other people elect the people you like the least.
Now I'm going to go to Youtube and watch some Bill Maher and Louis CK.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Generally, in the post-WWII Western world, making Holocaust jokes or anti-Jewish jokes is seen at the very least in pretty poor taste, and it is indeed the kind of thing that could see people lose sponsorships, jobs, etc. Mel Gibson has been trying to like a bastard to rebuild his career or 10 years after the whole "Jews start all the wars" drunken rant, and while it seems like Hollywood is prepared to give him yet another chance, he'll be dogged by that (and that crazy-ass phone call to his ex-girlfriend, which in some ways I found a whole lot more disturbing) until the day he dies.
Every society has its taboo subjects, some taboo for idiotic reasons (like say, blasphemy and heresy), and some probably for good reasons. In general attacking Jews or mocking or denying the Holocaust are seen as pretty bad because it is feared, not entirely without justification, that latent anti-Semitism inevitably ends up in some sort of pogrom (that's pretty much been the history of the Jews for at least two thousand years, even longer if you buy pre-Hellenic tales of woe). Now, in places like Germany and Austria, that sort of thing is likely to get you thrown in jail, but in the US, the state has no role in determining whether speech is allowed or not, save within a pretty narrow scope of circumstances. That doesn't, however, bind private actors like citizens or corporations from disassociating themselves from people who make anti-Semitic statements.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I cut ties with Disney after they outsourced their IT department.
News at 11.
Just in case anyone was wondering, you can find the video in question here. I've skipped to the relevant part, but the whole video is him going WTF over just what people will do for a few bucks on Fiverr:
https://youtu.be/KtxXKezbQ9w?t=660
"I am sorry. I didn't think they would actually do it."
"I don't feel too proud of this, I'm not going to lie."
> with this definition (racism=prejudice+discrimination) it makes sense to say blacks can't be racist.
No, it does not.
> Definitions can't be wrong, they may be confusing or useless, but not wrong.
Incorrect, they can be internally inconsistent, or contrary to other positions held by the same individuals or group, unfair, prejudicial themselves and so on.