Report: PewDiePie YouTube Series Cancelled Due to Anti-Semitic Posts

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

you wrote smth on internets and thought it was funny, riiiiight?

I don't hate him, I am disappointed in him though.

Mate, ofcourse. But if Gibson just showed up and told you 'hey that was a low blow' I'm sure You'd followed that with, sorry didn't mean anything bad.

In similar fashion most of poking fun at someone or something goes. You don't really mean any harm and if you aren't attacked for your actions and accused of some outreaching evil intentions you'd be very quick to aplogise if you see you hurt someone.

Apparently things change when politics, money and power is involved. And honestly that's something to be outraged about. Not few words ment as a joke.

 

[Kwak]

this guy, clearly talented...
....But you do not get to be a millionaire in that sort of medium, unless you have talent....

'Talent' usually applies to creativity and skill in an art form.
Business acumen and a skill for taking advantage of media delivery platforms, ad revenue, and the manipulation of people's tiny minds is something else. Though I guess you could say he is 'talented' at that.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Mate, ofcourse. But if Gibson just showed up and told you 'hey that was a low blow' I'm sure You'd followed that with, sorry didn't mean anything bad.

No, I don't think I would. I'm not afraid of calling people out on their bullshit.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Mate, ofcourse. But if Gibson just showed up and told you 'hey that was a low blow' I'm sure You'd followed that with, sorry didn't mean anything bad.

No, I don't think I would. I'm not afraid of calling people out on their bullshit.

Well I wish I could say 'good for you'. Instead I'll just mention that extremist are people with short memory and no self awarness. Tolerant people on the other hand are these who remember and don't try to whitewash their own past experience.

Only time will tell under which category you classify once you grow up

 

[Robert B. Marks]

Felix, however, was paying people to spread violently antisemitic messages, and even if he isn't a neo-Nazi, and those he paid are just people who would do anything for money, there are very real neo-Nazis out there who might act on that message he just spread.

Nobody is going to think Pewdiepie is being serious.... Don't pull that shit.

I hate to point this out, but neo-Nazis and white supremacists held a gathering in Washington after Trump's election wherein they shouted "Hail victory! Hail Trump!" while doing a Nazi salute.

(Source: http://billmoyers.com/story/mr-11-21-white-nationalists-heil-victory-police-crack-down-dakota-pipeline/ )

And then there's this: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4917913,00.html

So yes, there are people who can and will take that message seriously.

[snip]
tldr;
By falsely accusing people and blowing out of proportion figures of speach they used, to tag them alt-right or nazis you actually help to resurrect the movement. All that is needed is for these bastards to show up, show support and proclaim they will help fight off this injust (and that is true) attack. While personas like Trump or PDP by the end of a day will not turn into neo-nazis, some of the crowd involved in all this, will. Due to personal injust experience delivered to them by idiots(ignorants) who wound up whole false accusation campaign and bashed anyone that opposed.

Here's the thing, though - he WASN'T falsely accused. Regardless of if he was doing it to be edgy and funny (and failed miserably), or if he was secretly a neo-Nazi who was trying to sneak a violently antisemitic message out, he DID pay people to hold up signs advocating violence against Jews, and he DID put that on his channel. That he framed it as a prank does not change these facts.

You also need to keep in mind that Disney and Google (who owns YouTube, last I heard) are very large multinational corporations, and it is highly unlikely that they would take a move like this without first running it through legal - after all, the last thing they want is to be successfully sued for a couple of million dollars for lost revenue. So, while the executives who started the process may not have read any further than the initial articles, the legal department would have had to go to the source to do their due diligence. So the decision to drop him probably had relatively little to do with the newspapers publishing some articles that missed some context (deliberately or otherwise), and a lot to do with legal looking at the original videos and saying "You're right - we need to drop this guy."

 

[McMarbles]

Rich, entitled little shit does something fucking stupid, suffers consequences.

Please excuse me while I play the world's saddest song on my invisible violin.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Some of you folks are...really great.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

Well, credit where it's due - he is taking responsibility for his joke going too far.

So, that's respectable, at least.

 

[Ogoid]

Well. I never watched any of the guy's videos before, or had more than a tangential idea of who he was and what he did. Having looked into this, though?

His joke was ill-conceived. People have a right to be upset, and Disney was fully within its rights to cease working with him.

That said... I would call the reporting that brought this on a complete disgrace to journalism as whole, if I hadn't sadly learned, over a couple of years now, that that kind of spiteful, agenda-driven, click-baiting yellow trash is mostly what passes for it these days.

 

[StatusNil]

Well. I never watched any of the guy's videos before, or had more than a tangential idea of who he was and what he did. Having looked into this, though?

His joke was ill-conceived. People have a right to be upset, and Disney was fully within its rights to cease working with him.

That said... I would call the reporting that brought this on a complete disgrace to journalism as whole, if I hadn't sadly learned, over a couple of years now, that that kind of spiteful, agenda-driven, click-baiting yellow trash is mostly what passes for it these days.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with this as well. Obviously we're all addicted to judging, but we might as well try to be accurate about the substance of the thing.

And nothing really demonstrates the sincerity of the concern over the matter than the crowing about the "heckuva scoop" on Twitter by the trio of reporters involved.

 

[McElroy]

I thought it was funny. And I'm better than all of you. I have weird standards, though.

Curse the internet and social media. I was better off when I could just innocently laugh at stuff. Now when you know there are people who disapprove it feels a bit... sinister yet no less fun.

 

[Chewster]

Anyone else find that to be a half-hearted apology? I mean, sure he said he's sorry but then he spent half the video telling the Wall Street Journal and other old media "come at me bro," using his charity donations as a shield and then "apologizing" by saying he's a rookie comedian. Dude, you've been making videos for six years and maybe it's because you seem to have rabid fans to whom you can do no wrong, but haven't you learned anything about comedy in that time? You're a fucking 27-year-old man with 53 million Goddamn subscribers. You are the media, homeboy. Just apologize and move on, stop making excuses for yourself.

I know he's doing this all on his own or whatever, but he really ought to hire a bloody publicist or something because that video was cringy as fuck.

 

[Strazdas]

I find it pretty funny that people think the companies have some moral obligation to take a joke despite it potentially damaging their bottom line. OBVIOUSLY they know it's a joke. That doesn't matter. It's not about what the companies know, it's about what their consumers believe. Do you think a bunch of parents who are oblivious to internet culture are brushing it off? No, they were probably screeching about never taking little Johnny to Disney World ever again.

Do people seriously think this was some reactionary decision because poor little indie company, Disney, got their precious feelings hurt?

Gotta love how everyone think they're a CEO and obviously KNOWS better than the huge company with tons of advisers that makes billions of dollars.

At least I got a chuckle out of it.

But they do. If you hire a comedian - expect him to make jokes. If you dont want jokes - dont hire a comedian. Hiring a comedian and then firing him for doing his job is nonsense. But then, this is Disney, despite doing thie best to look like child friendly happy company they are actually one of the worst companies in the world and i expect no less from them.

And yes, apperently we DO know better. not how to maximize profit mind you, how to make a good company. The problem is that Disney is out to maximize profit, instead of being a good company.

That and apparently some jackass YouTuber, after making a distasteful and extraordinarily offensive joke, is just exercising his rights to free speech, but a company of people are practicing 'CENSORSHIP!!1!' when they dare to disassociate themselves with said YouTuber for making that joke.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

Firing somone for practicing free speech on his personal channel is by definition censorship. It would be like firing someone for voting Trump, which too btw happened.

 

[maninahat]

Nothing unreasonable here. A comedian makes some tasteless jokes and his sponsors decide not to associate with him anymore. Sounds very cut and paste, though I imagine it will prompt the talking heads of youtube to make lengthy videos about it.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Felix, however, was paying people to spread violently antisemitic messages, and even if he isn't a neo-Nazi, and those he paid are just people who would do anything for money, there are very real neo-Nazis out there who might act on that message he just spread.

Nobody is going to think Pewdiepie is being serious.... Don't pull that shit.

I hate to point this out, but neo-Nazis and white supremacists held a gathering in Washington after Trump's election wherein they shouted "Hail victory! Hail Trump!" while doing a Nazi salute.

(Source: http://billmoyers.com/story/mr-11-21-white-nationalists-heil-victory-police-crack-down-dakota-pipeline/ )

And then there's this: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4917913,00.html

So yes, there are people who can and will take that message seriously.

[snip]
tldr;
By falsely accusing people and blowing out of proportion figures of speach they used, to tag them alt-right or nazis you actually help to resurrect the movement. All that is needed is for these bastards to show up, show support and proclaim they will help fight off this injust (and that is true) attack. While personas like Trump or PDP by the end of a day will not turn into neo-nazis, some of the crowd involved in all this, will. Due to personal injust experience delivered to them by idiots(ignorants) who wound up whole false accusation campaign and bashed anyone that opposed.

Here's the thing, though - he WASN'T falsely accused. Regardless of if he was doing it to be edgy and funny (and failed miserably), or if he was secretly a neo-Nazi who was trying to sneak a violently antisemitic message out, he DID pay people to hold up signs advocating violence against Jews, and he DID put that on his channel. That he framed it as a prank does not change these facts.

You also need to keep in mind that Disney and Google (who owns YouTube, last I heard) are very large multinational corporations, and it is highly unlikely that they would take a move like this without first running it through legal - after all, the last thing they want is to be successfully sued for a couple of million dollars for lost revenue. So, while the executives who started the process may not have read any further than the initial articles, the legal department would have had to go to the source to do their due diligence. So the decision to drop him probably had relatively little to do with the newspapers publishing some articles that missed some context (deliberately or otherwise), and a lot to do with legal looking at the original videos and saying "You're right - we need to drop this guy."

He was accused of being anti-semite and endorsing nazis. To support this accusation TWSJ used even material in which PDP was making fun of these accusations by showing how he'd look as nazi supporter. These are false baseless accusations.

My family members were murdered by germans - nazis both in concentration camps and just out right shot on the street eg. for being members of university faculty during Au?erordentliche Befriedungsaktion ? AB or skinned alive as example to the community for hiding a jew (denounced by neighbours...). They were different nationalities and faiths, after the WWII they ended up in different countries. I don't take offence thou each time someone makes a dumb, tasteless jew, gypsy, polish or german joke. Even thou I feel discomfort hearing it in face because it's personal to me. Hell during my wedding one of cousins from my wife's family told us a joke about hitler and jews - he was 10 and didn't really mean anything horrid. He isn't secret neo-nazi, he just didn't realize history of my family, nor that my best female friend by my side is jewish. His family was mortified. But it was just a dumb joke about hitler commiting suicide because he got bill for the gas... We both smiled and explained to him why it's in bad taste.

Accusing PDP that he is nazi or that he whitewashes holocaust is wrong. It's a false accusation. You are intelligent man Robert I'm sure you can tell the difference here once you detach personal feelings. It doesn't mean that PDP is justified or O-K, WD actions are understandable but dishonest. PDP understands that all of these jokes were trash level meme humour but that's how he makes his money and WD and YT knew that. TWSJ also know that perfectly.

This is why they made the outrage piece on base that the comedian is not joking but in reality actually anti-semite, that would like to see all jews murdered, blames them for death of Jesus (which btw anti-semite bone-heads, is a JEW - one if not the most popular one in the world) etc. supported by 2 large corporations. Had they just reported facts, that PDP is an ass profitting from trash, internet meme sense of humour, nobody would bat an eyelash about it. However, no scandal and no outrage means no clicks, no spotlight and no money gain for TWSJ nor money loss for their revenue competitor, PDP.


They completely ignore and don't care that by doing this sort of deplorable smear campaign pivoted around neo-nazism they actually help to garner sympathy and supporters to alt-right. Because hey they got money and power out of it and if this also means that the nazis gain strength this only means more conflicts, outrage and... even more money and power in the future. Cause they are on the 'just side' of things, so win by default! Problem is, no they aren't. They (TWSJ) are true scumbags in this whole comotion.

 

[BrawlMan]

Now everybody takes themselves way too seriously.

But don't you know? The Internet is SRS BSNS.

/joke

God damn, I miss the days before social media.

Me too. Social Media allowed a lot more wackos and assholes than necessary. The Internet wasn't a perfect place, but because of places like Facebook and Twitter, you get all of these dumb asses out of the woodwork with nothing better to do. I've already said my piece about Pewds on an earlier topic, but what happened, happened. The irony, either party was surprised at what happened. Pewds should have known better, and Disney most definitely should have known better than get some big YouTube celebrity out of a random hat. Oh, know I why they picked him: because he popular with the children. That is literally the only reason. If it wasn't for that, they would not have even bothered. Pewds is fine financially, so this will barely do anything to him, and he has his followers.

 

[Vigormortis]

Firing somone for practicing free speech on his personal channel is by definition censorship. It would be like firing someone for voting Trump, which too btw happened.

Except, they didn't "fire" him for practicing free speech. They did it because they didn't want to associate themselves with someone who was making the sort of jokes he was making. Something that is well within their right, thanks in no small part to the rights granted by Free Speech.

The contemporary attempts to redefine 'censorship' are the height of stupidity. And do nothing but downplay the real instance of censorship.

Is PewDiePie unable to make videos now? Is he being actively silenced by a governing body? Is he no longer allowed to upload his content to Youtube and other outlets?

No, he isn't. He's not being censored. Stop trying to act like he is. It's embarrassing.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I find it pretty funny that people think the companies have some moral obligation to take a joke despite it potentially damaging their bottom line. OBVIOUSLY they know it's a joke. That doesn't matter. It's not about what the companies know, it's about what their consumers believe. Do you think a bunch of parents who are oblivious to internet culture are brushing it off? No, they were probably screeching about never taking little Johnny to Disney World ever again.

Do people seriously think this was some reactionary decision because poor little indie company, Disney, got their precious feelings hurt?

Gotta love how everyone think they're a CEO and obviously KNOWS better than the huge company with tons of advisers that makes billions of dollars.

At least I got a chuckle out of it.

But they do. If you hire a comedian - expect him to make jokes. If you dont want jokes - dont hire a comedian. Hiring a comedian and then firing him for doing his job is nonsense. But then, this is Disney, despite doing thie best to look like child friendly happy company they are actually one of the worst companies in the world and i expect no less from them.

And yes, apperently we DO know better. not how to maximize profit mind you, how to make a good company. The problem is that Disney is out to maximize profit, instead of being a good company.

They hired him to shriek like a lunatic while being "scared". It's how he became famous in the first place. Disney did not hire someone to make Jew jokes for a children's show. I realize he was smeared and it's kinda bullshit for him, but that doesn't matter. Disney's number one priority is making money. They don't care how the situation went down, they just care about the impact it left on their consumers.

Companies exist to make money. Maximizing profit is how you make a good company. You can have your own personal feel good definition of what makes a good company, but unfortunately, that doesn't matter. Money is what matters. I guess you can boycott Disney stuff over this if it made you feel really bad, but I'm sure they've already accounted for any potential fallout and decided their option was better for the company. They know that the kids who are angry about not getting to see this show are still going to line up for the next Marvel movie.

BTW, I'm not saying that I like what they did. I don't really care about PedDiePie at all, but I still think the situation sucks for him and I hope he tries to get some retribution for the apparent smear that went on him. I haven't looked into the situation really, so I don't know how much he can actually do. Also, in case you get the wrong idea, while I didn't personally find the jokes funny, I don't think anybody or anything should be safe in comedy. Louis CK is my favourite comedian and one of his best bits involves the death of every child with a peanut allergy.

 

[Dragonbums]

I think he should sue the articles over this. Sure he might lose some money but someone should stand up to these slanderous beasts in e media

In order for him to come close to winning that he would have to prove for one that he didn't make anti-Semite videos. Which-considering that he did do those things to the point that Storm Front boosted him...He's going to have a really hard time winning in the courts for any sort of slander.

 

[Strazdas]

Firing somone for practicing free speech on his personal channel is by definition censorship. It would be like firing someone for voting Trump, which too btw happened.

Except, they didn't "fire" him for practicing free speech. They did it because they didn't want to associate themselves with someone who was making the sort of jokes he was making. Something that is well within their right, thanks in no small part to the rights granted by Free Speech.

The contemporary attempts to redefine 'censorship' are the height of stupidity. And do nothing but downplay the real instance of censorship.

Is PewDiePie unable to make videos now? Is he being actively silenced by a governing body? Is he no longer allowed to upload his content to Youtube and other outlets?

No, he isn't. He's not being censored. Stop trying to act like he is. It's embarrassing.

How can you contradict yourself two sentences in and still dont see it? You are saying they didnt fire for what he said on his personal channel but because of what he siad on his personal channel? that makes no sense!

Yes, Disney has a legal right to do this, does not mean it is a good thing that they did.

Whats the height of stupidity is holding down to the first amendment as the only definition of censorship when it has NEVER been used as such.

Actually yes, he is no longer able to upload videos to youtube of certain series he was doing because he is actively prohibited from continuing those series.

They hired him to shriek like a lunatic while being "scared". It's how he became famous in the first place. Disney did not hire someone to make Jew jokes for a children's show. I realize he was smeared and it's kinda bullshit for him, but that doesn't matter. Disney's number one priority is making money. They don't care how the situation went down, they just care about the impact it left on their consumers.

Companies exist to make money. Maximizing profit is how you make a good company. You can have your own personal feel good definition of what makes a good company, but unfortunately, that doesn't matter. Money is what matters. I guess you can boycott Disney stuff over this if it made you feel really bad, but I'm sure they've already accounted for any potential fallout and decided their option was better for the company. They know that the kids who are angry about not getting to see this show are still going to line up for the next Marvel movie.

BTW, I'm not saying that I like what they did. I don't really care about PedDiePie at all, but I still think the situation sucks for him and I hope he tries to get some retribution for the apparent smear that went on him. I haven't looked into the situation really, so I don't know how much he can actually do. Also, in case you get the wrong idea, while I didn't personally find the jokes funny, I don't think anybody or anything should be safe in comedy. Louis CK is my favourite comedian and one of his best bits involves the death of every child with a peanut allergy.

I have no love for PDP, i think hes a borderline rapist, so stop making me defend him. No, he was not hired to shriek like a lunatic, he hasnt been doing this for years.

"Disney's number one priority is making money."

And this is a problem. Its number one priority should be to maximize good for the public. And so should every other company. This "money at any cost" results in awful runaway capitalism that fucks over everyone.

Though i suppose you are right, the people angry at this will continue to consume disney products because disney owns half the fucking globe.

The most he could do is sue the press companies for defamation and hope for another Hulk Hogan v Gawker outcome, but that takes a lot of money, time and the press to do something extremely illegal repeatedly to even get through. Peoples lives got destroyed when these same folks wrongly called someone a rapist and they still managed to sucesfully hide under the "Freedom of the press" defence. So the best PDP can do is to take his tens of millions of fans and make them boycott those shit sites.

In order for him to come close to winning that he would have to prove for one that he didn't make anti-Semite videos. Which-considering that he did do those things to the point that Storm Front boosted him...He's going to have a really hard time winning in the courts for any sort of slander.

Stormfront boosted my blog once. i spent weeks trying to get rid of them afterwards. Apperently im a nazi now as well?