YouTube personality, PewDiePie, announced in a video over the weekend that he’s going to take a break from the platform early next year.
In a video uploaded on Saturday, December 14, PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) critiqued YouTube’s new harassment policy that was announced last week, citing the change as part of his reason for taking a break. Kjellberg did not say how long his break from the platform would be.
“I am taking (a) break from YouTube next year,” he said in the video. ”I wanted to say it in advance because I made up my mind. I’m tired, I’m feeling very tired. I don’t know if you can tell … Just so you know, early next year I’ll be away for a little while. I’ll explain that later, but I wanted to give a heads up.”
The updated policy has been extended to all users, including YouTube creators and public officials that use the platform. Kjellberg said that the new policy would ruin the “anarchy system” of YouTube and that the only thing keeping the platform in check is other YouTubers.
“The rule is if you do dumb shit on YouTube, you will get called out on it … we need that. It’s the only thing keeping us sane, YouTube … don’t take it away from us, please,” he said in the video.
Kjellberg has over 102 million subscribers to his YouTube channel and is known for his high-energy gaming videos. In the past, he has been critiqued for his offensive and derogatory comments. He’s found himself in hot water many times for calling people racial slurs.
He was also the subject of controversy in 2017 after uploading a video that featured people he paid holding a sign in public that read, “Death to all Jews.”
Kjellberg isn’t the only YouTube creator that has made comments about the new harassment policy. Other YouTube creators like Philip DeFranco and Gokanaru have voiced their concerns and complaints about what the new policy would mean for YouTube’s community of creators.
“Why retroactively take down videos? If you’re gonna make a new policy change, then go from there … don’t go back in old videos, what does that fix?” Kjellberg said in his video.
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