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PewDiePie is 'taking a break' from YouTube in 2020
One of YouTube's best-known stars is close to taking a hiatus. PewDiePie (aka Felix Kjellberg) has used a video critiquing YouTube's new harassment policy to announce that he's "taking a break" from the site in early 2020. While he said a more detailed explanation would come later, he hinted that it might be due to burnout. "I'm feeling very tired," he said. He'd alluded to this in August, suggesting that he'd like to think about something besides YouTube "for the first time in 10 years."
PewDiePie asks for end to 'subscribe' meme after synagogue shooting
PewDiePie (aka Felix Kjellberg) has largely left himself out of commentary on the effects of the "subscribe to PewDiePie" meme that has been circulating for months, but he's now weighing in. The YouTube star has posted a video calling on viewers to end the meme roughly a day after a shooter at a California synagogue referenced it in his screed. While he had already used Twitter to condemn the Christchurch, New Zealand mass shooter's reference in March, he realized the meme "should have ended then" and that more was necessary.
Hacker forces Chromecasts and smart TVs to promote PewDiePie
The subscribe-to-PewDiePie hacking campaign continues unabated -- although it might have a positive side benefit this time around. TheHackerGiraffe (who perpetrated the earlier printer hack) has compromised thousands of Chromecast dongles, Google Home speakers and smart TVs to make them play a message that spreads both a security warning and PewDiePie propaganda. His script looks for compatible devices exposed to the internet through poorly configured routers, renames those devices to draw attention to them, and attempts to play a YouTube video warning victims to mend their ways. They're pointed to a web link (broken as of this writing) that offers help.
Hackers hit The Wall Street Journal in support of PewDiePie
Hackers targeted The Wall Street Journal earlier today, posting a fake apology in support of PewDiePie. In a sponsored post, the hackers published a note that said the publication wanted to apologize to the YouTuber and "due to misrepresentation" by its journalists The Wall Street Journal would be sponsoring PewDiePie. The Wall Street Journal took down the page and a spokesperson told The Verge that the company would be investigating the incident. "The page was owned by WSJ. Custom Solutions, a unit of the advertising arm, which is not affiliated with The Wall Street Journal newsroom," said the representative.
YouTube's Rewind 2018 becomes the site's most disliked video ever
YouTube's latest Rewind video, the annual recap touting "the videos, music and trends that defined YouTube in 2018," has become the most disliked video ever in the website's history. The previous holder of this dubious title was Justin Bieber's Baby, which over the course of eight years racked up an impressive 9.8 million dislikes. YouTube's 2018 Rewind, meanwhile, charged ahead of this figure in less than two weeks, passing 10 million dislikes (according to LikesCounter) early on December 13th.
Hacker hijacks 50,000 printers to tell people to subscribe to PewDiePie
Over the course of this week, some printers have been printing out a strange message asking people to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel. The message appears to be the result of a simple exploit that allows printers to receive data over the internet, including print commands. A person with the online handle TheHackerGiraffe has claimed responsibility for the attack.
YouTube will address ‘egregious’ acts by creators in new policies
The massive backlash to Logan Paul's Aokigahara forest video pushed YouTube to make a few changes in how it handles the content it hosts. The company took some specific actions against Paul himself, putting his original projects on hold and pulling his Preferred status, but it has also begun to tweak its policies and regulations overall. Now, in a blog post, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki says there are more changes to come. "We're also currently developing policies that would lead to consequences if a creator does something egregious that causes significant harm to our community as a whole," she wrote. "While these instances are rare, they can damage the reputation and revenue of your fellow creators, so we want to make sure we have policies in place that allow us to respond appropriately."
Logan Paul forced YouTube to admit humans are better than algorithms
YouTube is no stranger to controversy. Many of its top stars have been in hot water recently: From PewDiePie making racists remarks, to a "family" channel with abusive kid pranks, the company's been under fire for not keeping a closer eye on the type of content that makes it onto the site. Most recently, Logan Paul, a popular YouTuber with more than 15 million subscribers, faced backlash after posting a video that showed a corpse he came across in Japan's so-called "Suicide Forest." That clip, which was eventually taken down by Paul himself, forced YouTube to cut almost all ties with him and to figure out ways to prevent another situation like this.
Valve thinks charts will negate Steam review bombing
Review bombing in the gaming community is a woefully old concept, but after it took the spotlight again this month, following yet another racist outburst from YouTuber PewDiePie, Valve is taking action to mitigate the damaging effects it can have on game developers. Instead of single review scores, game pages will now be accompanied by a histogram displaying a visual history of user reviews.
PewDiePie in trouble once again for racist outburst
Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg is back in the headlines for, once again, expressing racist sentiment in one of his YouTube videos. During a stream of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the world's most popular YouTuber said the n-word during an expletive-filled rant.
YouTube stars are blurring the lines between content and ads
Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner are just some of the celebrities under the microscope for using social media to shamelessly plug sponsored products. Advertising without proper disclosures has become a growing problem with influencers that have thousands or millions of followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And it's happening on YouTube as well, where it's often hard to tell whether videos from big-name "content creators" are paid ads or genuine reviews.
PewDiePie starts a weekly Twitch show
Let's say you're YouTube star PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg. You're facing an exodus of advertisers that could hurt your bottom line, and it doesn't help that you shot yourself in the foot by making tasteless jokes. How do you keep the money coming in? By shifting some of your attention to Twitch. PewDiePie has launched a weekly Twitch show, Best Club, that airs every Sunday at 11AM Eastern. The talk show won't be anything shocking if you know Kjellberg's style (for better or for worse), but it gives him another avenue -- and notably one where he'll make the brunt of his revenue through direct contributions, not ads.
The Engadget Podcast Ep 29: Re-Offender
Managing editor Dana Wollman and senior editor Nathan Ingraham join host Terrence O'Brien to talk about the biggest tech stories of the week. Of course, that means Uber and the growing controversy around its corporate culture -- including allegations of rampant sexism. They'll also address Samsung's plans to sell refurbished Note 7s, Bill Gate's endorsement of a robot tax and PewDiePie's most recent controversy. Then it's time to unwind a bit, and the group has some reading and listening suggestions. Plus, Dana wants your recipes.
YouTube and PewDiePie aren't breaking up anytime soon
It's been a week since YouTube sensation Felix Kjellberg (better known as PewDiePie) had to face the music for the anti-Semitic jokes he made in several of his videos. In the fallout, PewDiePie lost his deal with Disney's Maker Studios, but the bigger blow came from YouTube directly. The company cancelled his original series Scare PewDiePie and also removed his channel from Google Preferred. That platform aggregates YouTube's top creators and makes it easier for brands to sponsor them. While PewDiePie can still run ads on his videos, his earnings will likely be negatively affected. However, despite the storm of outrage that surrounded YouTube's biggest star last week, it seems PewDiePie may get out of this not much worse for the wear. He's published five videos to YouTube in the past week, one of which was an apology for his tasteless jokes. Each of these has pulled in millions of views, just like normal. If his subscriber numbers have gone down, it's been a drop in the bucket. He still has well over 53 million followers, making his channel the most popular on YouTube. To put it in perspective, megastars Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift have just 27 million and 21 million followers, respectively.
YouTube cancels Pewdiepie's original series after anti-Semitic jokes
Just hours after Disney-owned Maker Studios severed ties with Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg for broadcasting anti-semitic messages, the Swedish-born vlogger has now lost support from another key supporter: YouTube. A company spokesperson confirmed today that the second season of Kjellberg's original series Scare PewDiePie has been cancelled, meaning it will not appear on the YouTube Red subscription service.
Maker Studios parts ways with Pewdiepie after anti-Semitic jokes
Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg's actions have cost him a business partner: Disney's Maker Studios. While the YouTube personality claimed a video published on January 11th was nothing more than a joke, the House of Mouse doesn't agree according to The Wall Street Journal. In the clip, Kjellberg hired a pair of Indian men from quick-task service Fiverr to hold up a banner that said "Death to all Jews."
PewDiePie's Twitter temporarily suspended after ISIS joke
Yesterday, popular YouTube personality PewDiePie made minor headlines for losing his Twitter verification checkmark. Today, he was briefly suspended for the service. "I did this yesterday as a joke," he explained on Youtube, teasing users who view Twitter verification as a status symbol. "But then America woke up and that's when shit got stupid." Overnight, Kjellberg says an account parodying Sky News posted a fake news story claiming he lost his verification status for having "suspected relations with ISIS." Later, the YouTuber referenced the article on Twitter, joking that both he and JackSepticEye had joined the terrorist organization. Later, his account Twitter account was suspended.
Warner Bros. paid YouTubers for positive game reviews
Warner Bros. has settled an FTC complaint accusing the company of paying YouTubers "hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars" to make positive review videos for Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. FTC filed the complaint back in 2014, after the studio ran an online marketing campaign for the game. According to the the commission, Warner Bros. required (PDF) the online influencers they hired to make a video that "promote[s] positive sentiment about" Shadow of Mordor. That video should "not show bugs or glitches that may exist" and should "not communicate negative sentiment" about Warner Bros. These influencers also had to promote their videos on Facebook and Twitter. The commission didn't release a list of the YouTubers the studio paid, but it did name PewDiePie as one of them.
YouTube Red's next originals include a 'Step Up' spinoff
YouTube just announced its second round of original series at VidCon 2016, and the biggest new series is a bit of a surprise. That would be Step Up, which will bring a "heart-pounding, sexy, music-filled and dramatic look at dancers in a contemporary performing arts school." Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan co-starred in the original movie (there have been five), and are among those listed as producers, and with the popularity of dance videos on YouTube it could be a good fit. Returning for second seasons are high profile originals Scare PewDiePie and Foursome, while the Smosh crew is bringing an as-yet untitled movie project.
The first YouTube Red Originals are now available
YouTube Red, Google's ad-free premium version of the video streaming site, has released its first four attempts at original programming, right on time. As you'd expect, the initial crop of videos feature some of the service's biggest personalities, including PewDiePie and Lilly Singh. Also included are Rooster Teeth's feature-length movie Lazer Team and AwesomenessTV's Dance Camp.
