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YouTube has recently come under fire from the online community for allegedly shadowbanning its biggest creator, PewDiePie.
PewDiePie is one of the most famous internet personalities globally and has a whopping 107 million subscribers on YouTube.
The 30-year old content creator has millions of fans worldwide, who took offense to the fact that their favorite creator might have been shadowbanned by YouTube.
It all started when on Thursday, several creators and fans noticed that PewDiePie's channel was not accessible for some reason.
Moreover, it is reported that his older videos were coming up in search results, which implies that YouTube may have tweaked its algorithm to work against the Swedish YouTuber.
And the fact that PewDiePie's recent videos were not showing up in search results left fans frantic, as they took to Twitter to criticize YouTube for allegedly shadowbanning him.
Shadowbanning is the worrisome act of ghosting or blocking a user's content from coming up in community searches without their prior knowledge.
Of late, several content creators have voiced displeasure with this unfavorable censorship method, and PewDiePie seems to be the newest victim. As dissent began to pile up, YouTube responded to the allegations by saying that it 'doesn't shadowban channels':
Despite apologizing for the inconvenience, the internet didn't seem too keen on letting YouTube's slip go away, as it took to Twitter to address the alleged PewDiePie shadow ban.
Did YouTube shadow ban PewDiePie?
In a recent YouTube video, Jeremy Habley of TheQuartering addressed PewDiePie's alleged shadowban, expressing concern over what it could mean for other content creators on the platform.
His caption for the video read:
"Well we all know YouTube is likely to say it was "just a glitch" but if they can do this to the platforms largest creator what's to stop them from coming for us."
He also spoke about how this phenomenon tends to be brushed under the carpet, while in reality, it is very much a cause for concern:
"This is something which has long been denied by big tech companies... obviously, I think this is something they actively do, usually they do suppression through supporting other content."
However, according to the latest updates, PewDiePie's channel now seems to be functioning normally and is visible in YouTube's search history.
PewDiePie himself pinned a comment to his latest YouTube video, where he stated that it was not a 'ban' and was instead the result of a 'bug':
While YouTube seems to be using the 'glitch' excuse to placate fans' flaring tempers online, the community doesn't seem to be buying it at all.
Check out some of the reactions online as the community reacted to PewDiePie's alleged shadowban:
From the tweets above, it's quite evident that the recent PewDiePie fiasco does undoubtedly not bode well for YouTube. Moreover, if this trend continues, the company could soon find itself teetering on the edge of a full-scale creator rebellion.
