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."

Comments

Who cares?

[sgage]

Who. Fucking. Cares? What is a PewDiePie? This is news?

Irreverent vs. Inappropriate

[cervesaebraciator]

"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."

It's funny how one of these words has a positive connotation, and the other one a negative. This, despite the fact that opposing groups might apply each term to the same content. All inappropriate means in a context where one is praising someone for irreverence is that the irreverence was applied to a preferred group.

I am reminded of Isaac Hayes's objection to South Park's irreverence toward Scientology.

Re:Irreverent vs. Inappropriate

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:Semetic?

[by (1706743)]

I think this makes you anti-semantic...

Re:Works better than expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Think most people missed what his 'message' was. You can hire people say whatever you want. It doesn't even cost much. Somehow people want to pretend it is not going on.

Yes what he did was racist. But he also has a bigger message that most people seem to want to ignore. You can *BUY* whatever narrative you want. That is not a good thing. Hell he bought it for 5 bucks a head.

Think some billionaire with a chip on his shoulder wouldn't do the exact same thing? If not why not?

I personally think exactly that has been going on for a long time. My wife decided to donate to one of these organizations once. Holy hell, did we get real spam mail for years. I am talking 10-15 per week. All of these 'grass roots' organizations are clearly thinly veiled money laundering schemes for rich people to push whatever narrative they want. The DNC itself in the past year has been caught on tape many times buying trouble. I have 0 doubt the RNC does the exact same thing.