Yahoo News 
YouTube and Disney drop star PewDiePie over antisemitic posts
YouTube has joined Disney in cutting ties with the video channel’s biggest star PewDiePie after he posted a series of videos featuring antisemitic content.
The Swede, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, is reported to have made more than £12m through the channel in 2016.
The decision by Disney, the entertainment conglomerate, came after several recently released videos were found to contain Nazi references or antisemitic imagery.
Shortly afterwards, YouTube cancelled the second season of Kjellberg’s reality show, Scare PewDiePie, and removed his channel from its premium advertising programme.
Kjellberg argued that although the videos were “offensive”, he did not support “hateful attitudes”.
In one video, Kjellberg paid two Indians through a crowd-sourcing website to hold up a sign which read “Death to all Jews”.
Other videos contained a Swastika and the Nazi party anthem. In one, he performed a Nazi salute.
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In a statement, Maker Studios, the Disney-owned company with a network of YouTube stars, confirmed they had dropped the 27-year-old.
“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 said.
Kjellberg argued he was “trying to show how crazy the modern world is, specifically some of the services available online” and that people “would say anything for five dollars”.
He said it “laughable” to suggest he supported the message, but conceded that “though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive”.
In 2016, PewDiePie was suspended from Twitter after making jokes about the ISIS, although he account was quickly reinstated.
