One of the most popular voices on YouTube, PewDiePie, is getting punished for making tasteless anti-Semitic “jokes.” Not only has the PewDiePie channel been removed from the Google Preferred advertising program, YouTube has also cancelled the second season of the channel’s Scare PewDiePie show.
As reported by Variety, PewDiePie released several videos of a stunt where the popular internet personality paid men to hold signs saying “Death to all Jews.” The “prank” was intended to be a criticism of the company Fiverr, but, well, it’s not funny at all.
In a statement released earlier today, a spokesperson from YouTube told Variety, “We’ve decided to cancel the release of ‘Scare PewDiePie’ Season 2 and we’re removing the PewDiePie channel from Google Preferred.” Google Preferred is an advertising program used to sell “brand-safe content” on the video streaming site.
As for the “Death to all Jews” videos, those have been removed and can no longer be accessed. It’s unclear if YouTube has made these videos unavailable, or if PewDiePie has pulled them himself.
This is far from the first time that PewDiePie has created issues on YouTube. Back in September, PewDiePie used a video to call out all of the other popular YouTube creators to create drama, and more recently campaigned to reach 50 million subscribers under the condition that he would delete his channel once the milestone was reached. That ended up being misleading, as PewDiePie did delete a channel he had created, but not his main one.
While PewDiePie has been removed from Google Preferred, he will still be able to continue making new videos and uploading them to YouTube. Don’t expect any more premium content made in collaboration with YouTube, though.
So what do you think? Do you agree that PewDiePie should be punished for his videos? Do you think YouTube has gone too far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
