Felix Kjellberg’s Twitter account was suspended after he unverified himself and tweeted a joke about joining ISIS.
On 31 August, Felix removed his verification on Twitter and replaced it with the “globe with meridians” emoji, tweeting: “Unverified is the new verified”.
He then retweeted a tweet from an account imitating Sky News, which included a headline claiming that the YouTuber had “suspected relations with ISIS”. The link in the tweet leads to an unrelated article.
Popular YouTuber @pewdiepie unverified due to suspected relations with ISIS https://t.co/iElCWtBzpU pic.twitter.com/x2L0INKVU5
— Sky News (@SkyNeiws) August 30, 2016
In a vlog explaining his actions, Felix spoke about his dissatisfaction with the verification system on Twitter, arguing that the verified tick is nothing more “some form of status symbol”.
He invited his audience to “be globified”, leading to fans and friends of his adding the globe emoji to their Twitter names in protest against Twitter’s verification system. He also mentioned his surprise that anyone believed the parody Sky News account to be real, adding, “It’s obviously a fake and it’s not verified”.
Felix’s tweets concerning ISIS prompted Twitter to investigate his account, coming to the conclusion that the account had been hacked. This conclusion was based on several factors, including the recent tweets and his profile picture at the time. The account was deactivated until Felix confirmed that he was behind the activity.
Felix is now back on Twitter with a reduced follower count and has not addressed his account suspension. Emma Blackery has since tweeted a picture with Felix, joking about the incident:
Well if what the news reports are true about @PewDiePie I can safely say I'm fucked goodbye friends pic.twitter.com/71qzWezpbw
— Emma BOOKERY (@emmablackery) September 1, 2016
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