Has PewDiePie’s YouTube channel been shadowbanned?

PewDiePie's YouTube channel might have been shadowbanned, and no one currently has a concrete explanation as to why. Fans of the famous online personality noticed something off in one of his most recent videos, where he's gained 75,000 views in two hours.

While this may seem like a lot to some, it isn't nearly what the Swedish YouTuber normally amasses, which can sometimes exceed two million views in that same time span. This raises questions on how quickly YouTube can solve impactful issues, and why something like this would happen in the first place.

PewDiePie shadowbanned on YouTube?

PewDiePie's YouTube channel can still be accessed but only through other sites like Google and Twitter. (Picture: YouTube) 

The 30-year old content creator has over 107 million subscribers and fans that look forward to his videos daily. Unfortunately, he seems to have run into a problem on the platform that hosts thousands of his videos. At the time of writing, if you were to search up his name on YouTube's search bar, his channel won't appear as a result. Even worse, fans have reported that they have not received an alert for his newest upload.

Fans assume that Google has shadowbanned his account, resulting in his channel not popping up in the search bar. The term 'shadowbanned' essentially means that YouTube didn't inform PewDiePie of his ban.

Popular content creator Keemstar brought attention to this issue, providing screenshots of PewDiePie's video views to back him up. One Twitter user, @Broken4444, stated they had to scroll all the way to the bottom of their subscription tab to see their subscription alert. 

you may have a point, pewds usually shows up in the top of my subscriptions tab to the left of my youtube page, and i had to scroll towards the bottom of my list to see him

— Bad Dag Duck (@broken4444) October 22, 2020

Another Twitter user, @KGProductions_, stated that PewDiePie usually gets 500,000 views in an hour. If the shadowban theory is true, then YouTube is going to receive some major repercussions from PewDiePie fans as well as content creators. One YouTuber, Alphaseries, made a video upset over YouTube’s way of handling this, and worries for other content creators that may be in a similar situation in the future.

In an hour he usually pulls in close to 500k Views. If this is true then youtube gonna be getting a lot of backlash. He hasn’t even done anything slightly controversial in a long time

— KG Productions (@KGProductions__) October 22, 2020

Since PewDiePie has yet to comment on the situation, speculation has been running wild on Twitter. User @Comcross11 posted a recent clip of PewDiePie commenting about China's social media restrictions. The user stated that this may have been the reason why he was shadowbanned by YouTube.

Pretty sure this is the reason why pewdiepie was shadowbanned pic.twitter.com/Gf6uhAcqAi

— ProtoCom (@Comcross101) October 22, 2020

YouTube has not yet commented on the issue.