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Youtube cancels deal with Swedish internet celebrity for anti-semitic videos

Xinhua, February 15, 2017 Adjust font size:

Youtube recently cut its business ties with Felix Kjellberg, one of the world's best earning Internet celebrity better known by his alias PewDiePie, due to an anti-Semitism controversy.

"We've decided to cancel the release of (reality series) Scare PewDiePie Season 2 and we're removing the PewDiePie channel from Google Preferred," a Youtube spokesperson said in a statement released Tuesday.

This decision could cost Kjellberg a lot as Google Preferred is an advertising service aggregating Youtube's top content into easy-to-buy packages for brand advertisers.

Youtube also removed ads from controversial videos, while Kjellberg has taken down at least three from his video list.

Youtube was reacting to the recent anti-semitic stunt pulled by Kjellberg, as the Swedish entertainer in the last six months posted various videos featuring anti-semitic comments or Nazi references.

The videos have already led to Disney's Maker Studios canceling its deal with Kjellberg on Monday.

The Maker Studios multi-channel network partnered with "more than 60,000 independent creators around the globe" and produced videos for thousands of Youtube channels.

"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.

"Maker Studios has made the decision to end our affiliation with him going forward," he was quoted by Forbes magazine.

In response to the controversy, the 27-year-old Swedish vlogger said Sunday in his blog that he was "in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes."

"I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary," Kjellberg insisted.

"Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive," he admitted.

Two Indian people, named the Fiverr Funny Guys, also apologized in a video published on Jan. 16, saying that they did not understand English well enough to grasp the meaning of the "Death to all Jews" banner, which was held by them in one of Kjellberg's videos.

Owning over 53 million subscribers on Youtube, Kjellberg earned a whopping 15 million U.S. dollars in 2016 before tax from ad revenues on his Youtube channel. Endi