Pewdiepie manages to get banned from Twitch without actually streaming on Twitch

Pewdiepie at Star Wars: The Force Awakens European premiere (2015)

(Image credit: Chris Jackson (Getty Images))

Just over a month after making a surprise semi-return to Twitch, Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg has been banned from the platform. A reason for the suspension hasn't been announced, but some fans are speculating that it could be due to one of his old VODs.

Pewdiepie is famous as one of the most dominant figures on YouTube—in fact, despite 'retiring' from YouTube in 2020 (which in reality was just more of a slowdown), he wasn't surpassed as the platform's top dog until MrBeast claimed the crown in late 2022. He does have a Twitch channel too, but hadn't touched it for years—until March, when it suddenly popped back to life, inexplicably airing episodes of Canadian sitcom Trailer Park Boys.

Pewdiepie went live after years of not streaming on twitch and is streaming episodes of trailer park boys pic.twitter.com/u9NEylEgDZMarch 22, 2023

This was all quite confusing, and as Dexerto pointed out at the time, some fans worried that Pewdiepie's channel had been hacked. But it was actually the work of CoPilot Media, a distribution and monetization service, which was using the footage to test a planned rollout of Pewdiepie Infinity, essentially an endless loop of Pewdiepie's videos, running non-stop. (Trailer Park Boys was used for the test because CoPilot has the rights to that content, too.)

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So, mystery solved—but now there's a new mystery afoot. After a little over a month of running constant VODs, and with nary a single live appearance from the man himself, Pewdiepie's channel was banned. As usual, Twitch did not publicly comment on the reason for the ban, or how long it will last.

Quite a few Pewdiepie fans have speculated that YouTube's comparatively lax content guidelines could have been the cause—simply put, what passes muster on the 'Tube is not necessarily acceptable on Twitch. Some believe the ban was specifically triggered by an inadvertent replay of the infamous "Bridge Incident," in which Pewdie dropped the n-word during a 2017 PUBG session.

Pewdiepie - The Bridge Incident — (Image credit: Pewdiepie (Twitter))

I can't currently confirm if the above VOD actually aired on Pewdiepie's Twitch channel, but that's where things stand right now: Somehow, Pewdiepie managed to get banned from Twitch less than two months after returning to Twitch, during which he was never actually on Twitch at all. It's almost impressive.

There's currently no indication as to when Pewdiepie's Twitch channel will return to action. Penalties for content guideline violations are usually fairly short, but it's also possible that CoPilot is now picking through Pewdiepie's extant YouTube content with a very fine comb, and with roughly 4,700 videos currently posted to his YouTube channel, that could take a while. I've reached out to Pewdie and CoPilot Media for more information, and will update if I receive a reply.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.