Disney drops PewDiePie over anti-Semitic videos

Maker Studios, a division of Disney, has severed ties with YouTuber PewDiePie after he posted a video with anti-Semitic remarks. That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, who contacted Disney yesterday about the video in question.

The video was originally posted on January 11th, and featured two men laughing as they held a banner above their heads that read, "Death to all Jews." The video has since been removed, but attracted millions of views from PewDiePie’s 53m subscriber base before it was taken down.

The Wall Street Journal also notes that PewDiePie has posted a total of nine videos since August that contained either anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery. Three of these have been removed since the WSJ’s enquiries, including one that featured a man dressed as Jesus Christ saying, "Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong."

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,” a spokeswoman for Maker Studios told the WSJ.

Before the January 11th video was removed, Google quickly removed adverts that ran in front of the video within days of it being posted. Adverts still remain on PewDiePie’s other videos, however.

PewDiePie wrote on Tumblr on Sunday that he wanted to "clear some things up" and stated that he doesn’t support "any kind of hateful attitudes". He also said he understood that "these jokes were ultimately offensive" but that he created the videos for his audience "as entertainment" and that his channel was "not a place for any serious political commentary."

"As laughable as it is to believe that I might actually endorse these people, to anyone unsure on my standpoint regarding hate-based groups: No, I don’t support these people in any way," he wrote.