YouTube reverses itself and decides PewDiePie, who paid people to hold up a sign saying “Death to all Jews”, is not only welcome on its platform but shouldn’t appear anywhere else

The online video platform Youtube has overcome its earlier reservations about the online gaming celebrity and provocateur PewDiePie, agreeing that he will make the website his exclusive online stage.

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, who is known on YouTube as PewDiePie, is a Swedish gamer based in the UK whose YouTube channel has over 104 million subscribers and 25 billion views. He has previously come under fire for antisemitic videos and statements, and at one point pledged to make a $50,000 donation to fight antisemitism, before withdrawing the donation after pressure from fans. He was been listed by Time as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2016, and the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website has described itself as “the world’s #1 PewDiePie fan site”.

Youtube, which is owned by Google, had at one point shunned PewDiePie in the wake of some of his racist outbursts, as did Disney. In 2016 he was also temporarily blocked from Twitter after joking that he had joined ISIS.

However, YouTube has now apparently decided the PewDiePie and his views are fit for its platform.

Campaign Against Antisemitism continues its robust engagement with social media companies over the content that they enable to be published, and we continue to make representations to the Government in this connection.