Pewdiepie has officially been banned across multiple online services in China, the YouTuber confirmed today in a video posted on his channel. "Well boys, we did it," Pewdiepie starts, claiming that he'd been banned from China as a result of his support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests and his mocking of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. "I knew it was gonna happen," Pewdiepie admits, before saying that he's sorry for fans in China who won't be able to watch his videos anymore.
Pewdiepie doesn't seem to be too wounded over his ban, however, as he spends less than a minute of the 15-minute video "Pewdiepie Is BANNED in China" talking about the issue. The rest he dedicates to a normal Pewdiepie reaction video regarding a different YouTube who has turned their career toward covering Chinese songs for the Chinese market. Surprisingly, Pewdiepie doesn't mention why the two different topics are included in one video.
It isn't immediately clear just how broad of a ban in China Pewdiepie is actually facing. In his own words, he's banned on "any Reddit-related forum" and any "YouTube-related videos" in China. Perhaps he's implying general popular social media platforms like TikTok or Youku, or search engines like Baidu. It isn't clear if Pewdiepie is also banned from physically banned from visiting China like other public figures have been in recent weeks.
The specific video that Pewdiepie cites as the reason he was banned in China is his October 16 "Hong Kong vs Joker Ends Fortnite [MEME REVIEW]" video. In the video, Pewdiepie breaks down the situation regarding Blizzard's ban of Hearthstone player Blitzchung over his pro-Hong Kong statement on-stream. He also talks about South Park's recent episode criticizing Hong Kong, which led to its own ban in the country. And finally, Pewdiepie jokes about China's president Xi being compared to Winnie the Pooh.
It's entirely possible that Pewdiepie is exaggerating the nature of his ban and that it isn't as severe as he implies. Exaggeration in YouTube video titles isn't necessarily uncommon, but it's also not uncommon for China to punish its critics for voicing sentiment contrary to its government's values in what ways it can. Pewdiepie's criticism falls within that spectrum.