YouTube star PewDiePie jumps on ‘banned in China’ bandwagon

Video explaining Hong Kong protests results in censorship, Swedish social media personality claims

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YouTube star PewDiePie says he was banned from China after commenting on the Hong Kong protests and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo: YouTube

Published: 9:12pm, 22 Oct 2019Updated: 11:32pm, 22 Oct 2019

One of the world’s biggest YouTube stars claims to have fallen foul of China’s censors for his comments on the Hong Kong protests and Chinese president Xi Jinping.

Swedish-born Felix Kjellberg, known to his millions of online fans as PewDiePie, released a video announcing his “ban” on Friday, adding himself to a growing list of foreign entertainment figures and companies swept up in recent controversy as China’s government looks to control the narrative around Hong Kong’s anti-government protests.

Apple, the NBA and gaming giant Blizzard have all faced pressure from Beijing for what it regards as interference in an internal matter.

“Well boys we did it, I’m banned from China, that’s right, after I spoke about the Hong Kong protests and showed their leader as mocked for looking like Winnie-the-Pooh,” Kjellberg said in his video on YouTube, the online video platform which is not available in China.

“I knew it was going to happen … obviously me talking about the Hong Kong memes was going to get me banned in China,” he said, adding that searches for his handle on certain forums appeared “completely blank” on the mainland.

Kjellberg, 29, in a video uploaded last week, took a break from his regular video game chat and meme critiques to explain the Hong Kong protests to his more than 101 million subscribers.