Home » When “Influencers” Go Overboard – Disney Cuts Ties With Pewdiepie

When “Influencers” Go Overboard – Disney Cuts Ties With Pewdiepie

Disney has cut ties with YouTube’s most popular “influencer” after he posted a series of videos featuring anti-Semitic clips and messages. Maker Studios, a division of Disney, said in a statement that they are cutting off their deal with 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.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, 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. Disney bought Maker in 2014 for $675 million.

After Pewdiepie threatened to leave in 2016, Maker hung onto him by partnering with him so he could create his own entertainment network called Revelmode. The idea was to give Pewdiepie and his friends a platform to create videos, games, apps, and merchandise. “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.”

YouTube, meanwhile, declined to comment on Pewdiepie’s recent 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 apologized in a video, saying, “we really don’t know what the message meant when making the video.” All three were banned from Fiverr.

 

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