PewDiePie uses N-word during live stream, game developer takes action
PewDiePie is at the centre of a controversy, once again.
YouTube's highest paid and most prominent personality, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, used a racial slur during a livestream video playing Battle Royale shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
In the video, PewDiePie can be seen getting frustrated with another player and shouting to him: “What a fucking n-,” before immediately correcting himself: “Sorry, but what the fuck. What a fucking asshole.”
The YouTuber, whose channel has over 57 million subscribers, has a history of making racial statements. Back in February, the Wall Street Journal posted a review of several of his recent videos that included multiple anti-Semitic "jokes" and Nazi imagery.
Disney's Maker Studios cut ties with the YouTuber while Google's YouTube dropped him from his subscription-based Red service after the racist references were put in the spotlight.
But PewDiePie kept making the occasional anti-Semitic reference. At one point that The Daily Stormer had a banner that declared itself "The world's #1 PewDiePie fansite." Keep in mind that The Daily Stormer is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi news site that has been kicked off both GoDaddy and Google web hosting services.
In the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville last month, PewDiePie released a video in which he seemed to be reconsidering making Nazi references in his YouTube videos that are watched by millions of people.
During the livestream, PewDiePie tried to defend his actions:
“[The other player] did a dick move, and I tried to think of the worst word,” PewDiePie said while laughing. “And I end up saying n*****.” He added: "I know that no one watching gives a shit."
How wrong he was.
Sean Vanaman, game developer at Campo Santo, the studio behind popular game Firewatch, said on Twitter he's filing DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) reports to take down all videos and streams of Kjellberg playing his company's title:
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
“There is a bit of leeway you have to have with the internet when u wake up every day and make video games,” Vanaman said. “There’s also a breaking point.”
“He’s worse than a closeted racist: he’s a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry."
And it seems to already have had an effect.
PewDiePie's full playthrough of Firewatch from 2016, which was viewed 5.7 million times, is currently unavailable.
The DMCA can be invoked by companies to protect their copyright in various circumstances, though the legislation is a bit murky, as explained by Kotaku.
