Twitch Hits PewDiePie With Unexplained 72-Hour Suspension
PewDiePie was banned for 72 hours while streaming old content on Twitch, and no one is sure what prompted the platform’s decision.
@StreamerBans, a Twitter account dedicated to monitoring bans of popular streamers via automated tweets, reported on May 9th, “Twitch Partner ‘PewDiePie’ has been banned!” PewDiePie — real name Felix Kjellberg — clearly still has a weighty reputation, as the tweet was seen over 9.5 million times.
Dexerto’s Connor Bennet reports that PewDiePie’s Twitch channel, which had previously been inactive for years, has recently seen a resurgence in viewership thanks to the YouTuber’s decision to use it as a platform for endless re-runs of his old content.
Some suspected he had been hacked, especially after it started streaming episodes of Trailer Park Boys. It later became apparent that CoPilotMedia was handling these streams, which also had the rebroadcast rights to Trailer Park Boys. Regardless, thanks to ad revenue and subscriptions, PewDiePie’s Infinite Stream has been called an “infinite money glitch.”
Several Twitter user put the blame squarely at Twitch’s feet, assuming the company had failed to consider PewDiePie’s older videos were being automatically streamed.
“The fact that they bought his videos and picked them themselves just to ban him tells you everything you need to know about the people that run this s—t-show website,” @nopeify mocked in response to @StreamerBans’ tweet.
“So twitch owns the PewDiePie channel, they re run his gaming content to basically farm viewers for their own gain. Twitch re-ran him playing yandere simulator and HuniePop, both of which are banned games on the platform. And then proceeded to ban the channel… THAT THEY OWN,” @ArdyIRL speculated.
Many users also theorized a clip of PewDiePie’s “heated gamer moment” — in which PewDiePie could be heardusing a racial slur in anger — had been played during the stream. Despite some considering or outright claiming it was true, there is currently no evidence for this.
@StreamerBans also highlights when a streamer’s ban has been lifted. Sure enough, it reported on May 12th that Kjellberg’s ban had been lifted after “3 days, 11 minutes and 20 seconds!”
At this time of writing, PewDiePie has not addressed the ban in any form. Could the ban have been triggered over those Trailer Park Boys episodes being flagged by a bot for copyright? Did an unsuspecting viewer report the account thinking it had been hacked?
For now, only PewDiePie knows. But with an estimated net value between $40 million and $60 million, one has to wonder if he even cares.
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