YouTube’s largest personality announced Saturday that his videos are no longer available in China after he showed support for the Hong Kong protesters.
PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, runs the second largest channel on YouTube and the first largest to be organized around a single person, sporting over 100 million subscribers. However, Chinese viewers are now banned from accessing his content after the Swede posted a video that showcased several pro-Hong Kong memes.
“Well boys we did it, I’m banned from China,” Felix announced in a video on October 19. “After I spoke about the Hong Kong protest and showed their leader [China’s Xi Jinping] being mocked as looking like Winnie the Pooh I got banned from China. Now if you search anything PewDiePie related… it will just be completely blank,” he informed his audience.
“I knew it was gonna happen… me talking about the Hong Kong memes was gonna get me banned,” he added, referencing a video he did on October 16.
The October 16 video that triggered China’s censorship was the 68th edition of “Meme Review,” a show where Felix looks at popular internet memes and records his reactions.
“China is like that one person on Twitter that just can’t take criticism and blocks everyone,” Felix commented during Meme Review, after seeing a meme about Chinese censorship.
He also shared his thoughts on brands like the NBA and Blizzard giving public support for China and suppressing pro-Hong Kong sentiment among their ranks. (RELATED: Hunter Biden Received $700,000 From Company That Held Stake In Chinese Investment Firm)
“These companies, they might put up a face, they might put up a rainbow flag and yes that’s good in a way but at the end of the day their goal is to make money,” he said. “They don’t care about you, they don’t care about freedom, and unless people push back at companies, they’re not gonna do anything.”
“[For these companies] it’s all about pleasing China and following Chinese rule,” he concluded.
Felix then praised the creators of “South Park” for openly criticizing Chinese censorship knowing that they themselves would be censored.