YouTube star PewDiePie says he’s been banned in China and his videos wiped off Chinese sites after he joked about how pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong have been using memes of Winnie the Pooh to mock Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, is the biggest YouTuber in the world with more than 101 million subscribers, but as of Sunday, his channel appears to have been censored by Chinese authorities and removed from the airwaves, according to gaming news site, Polygon.
Now, the YouTuber says in one of his most recent videos, that if you search “PewDiePie” on the Internet in China, it returns zero results.
PewDiePie says he’s not surprised he’s been censored; it actually seems as if he’s wondering why it took so long. In a a video posted to his YouTube account last week, PewDiePie mocks Chinese censors and discusses the recent slate of Chinese “bannings,” from South Park to LeBron James to Blizzard’s decision to ban a player from its Hearthstone game after that player expressed support for the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
“Obviously China is like that one person on Twitter that can’t take any criticism and just blocks everyone,” PewDiePie says in the video.
His most egregious sin, though, may have been laughing at masks worn by students taking part in the Hong Kong demonstrations that meld Xi Jinping with Disney’s Winnie the Pooh — a comparison that the Chinese leader dislikes so much, his government has banned any mention of Winnie the Pooh outright inside China. The Chinese even demanded that a recent Disney film, featuring Winnie the Pooh, be censored so as to avoid encouraging dissent, according to Business Insider.
In a recent video, PewDiePie points to the memes and notes that the “resemblance is uncanny” between the cartoon and the Chinese leader. That appears to have been the last straw for China’s Internet censors.
“I’m laughing but, yeah, I’m sorry if you are in China and trying to watch my videos,” PewDiePie says in a video uploaded on Sunday. “That kinda sucks.”
As with electronic music star, DJ Zedd, who was “banned” from China last week, it’s not immediately clear what a complete “ban” means for PewDiePie. YouTube isn’t accessible in China, and most Chinese consumers get their YouTube content — which would include PewDiePie’s videos — from mirror sites or video sites where fans re-upload content they can reach using VPN software that allows them to get around Chinese government firewalls.
In this case, it seems its the reposting that is blocked. Chinese PewDiePie fan confirmed the de facto national ban on Twitter, pointing out that while some PewDiePie videos — the ones uploaded before last week — are still accessible to Chinese users, users cannot repost PewDiePie’s content to Chinese sites after picking it up elsewhere. That, effectively, means that PewDiePie’s Chinese fans won’t see any new content, though they may be able to access existing content.
#pewdiepie #reddit Felix, you are indeed banned in China. You know, you have about 600000 fans in China. I am one of them. Most of them are reproduced through Chinese video websites, not directly following your YouTube channel. When we heard that you were banned, we were very sad pic.twitter.com/nlG0PlWjv3
— BUCK的老公 (@Xxmiaomiao) October 19, 2019
The Internet personality is using the occasion to promote a VPN network that, presumably, would allow his Chinese fans to bypass the government crackdown.
“Keep the internet open and free of regulations,” he tweeted.