Felix Kjellberg has responded to media accusations that he failed to disclose a sponsorship deal with Warner Bros.
Articles have claimed that Felix, among other YouTubers, was paid by the company to release positive reviews for the game Shadow of Mordor without adequately disclosing to viewers that they were sponsored.
Felix posted a video in response to the claims, refuting the headlines and setting out a number of reasons why he believes the accusations to be false.
According to Felix, YouTubers involved in the promotion of the game in 2014 were not required to disclose the sponsorship deal. “I still did it. Some other YouTubers actually didn’t disclose,” he said.
He added that specific guidelines around YouTube weren’t announced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) until 2015. “Back then YouTube paid promotion was a bit of a grey area,” he said. “Nevertheless, I still disclaimed it […] Today, I make a verbal mention before the video begins, and the top line of the description mentions it as well.”
Felix accused the media of using his name as a tool to boost their own views, especially as other smaller YouTubers didn’t disclose the deal at the time. “All of these news articles are using me as a clickbait,” he said, “putting my name to shame, when I didn’t even do anything wrong.”
Felix ended his video by encouraging people to “see past the headlines”, saying: “If I did something wrong, I should be paying the consequences. In this case, I don’t think I did anything wrong.”
The FTC is not imposing any penalties on Warner Bros. in this instance, but the company have been banned from offering similar deals in the future.
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