PewDiePie has decided to rescind a $50,000 donation to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization for fighting anti-Semitism, after fan backlash.
Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg has been at the center of several controversies before. Most notably he paid two men on Fiverr to hold up a sign that read "Death To All Jews" in 2017, which caused the ADL to write a message to Disney urging them to cut ties with the YouTuber. PewDiePie has also said the n-word on stream and made references to Nazis in a joking manner. The shooter behind the Christchurch attack earlier this year repeated the meme "subscribe to PewDiePie," which caused the YouTuber to urge his fans to end the meme.
PewDiePie's video earlier this week, when he made the initial donation announcement, was met with negative reception. He said in the video he had come to terms with his role as a creator, and the announcement seemed like an olive branch towards those who see him as someone who promotes hate speech. Fans reacted in the YouTube comments and on Twitter with conspiracy theories, alleging that PewDiePie had been blackmailed. Some fans are still upset with the ADL over their decision to classify "Pepe the Frog" as a hate symbol after it was appropriated by the alt-right in 2016. PewDiePie defended the decision in a since-deleted tweet, where he stated he wanted to move on.
In his latest video, released this Thursday, PewDiePie has announced his decision to rescind the donation, saying "I made the mistake of picking a charity I was advised to instead of picking a charity I'm personally passionate about." He said he saw the donation as a way to put an end to alt-right claims made about him, but that he didn't know a lot of things about the ADL. Now, he says, he's going to take the time to pick the right charity.
While PewDiePie didn't elaborate on the reason he rescinded the donation, the ADL has faced criticism in the past for charges of defamation and spying allegations. More recently, the ADL was made part of YouTube's "trusted flaggers" program in 2016, allowing them to flag videos for removal that contain hate speech. According to some, this is equivalent to censorship. Still, donating to an anti-hate organization seems like an unambiguously good thing, and PewDiePie's decision to rescind the donation could be seen as an appeal to his fanbase rather than a desire to do the right thing.
Sources: The New York Times, Reclaim the Net