PewDiePie Accuses VICE of Slander Following his Response to Alinity
Screengrab via PewDiePieThe most subscribed YouTuber, Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg has accused digital media and broadcasting company VICE of slander, following his response video to Alinity.
PewDiePie and Alinity had been caught up in a dispute after the Twitch streamer threatened to ‘copy strike’ a video in which he called Alinity, amongst other female streamers, “Twitch thots”.
PewDiePie quickly apologized for his word choice and removed the clip from Alinity’s stream from the video.
But Alinity did not accept his apology, releasing a statement accusing him of spreading a negative message to what she claimed was a young, impressionable audience.
PewDiePie’s response was scathing, reminding Alinity that she had openly admitted for breaching copyright law, and filing, through agency CollabDRM, fraudulent copyright claims on fair use content.
In his video, he highlighted the very sexually suggestive nature of Alinity’s stream content, as well as showing a moment where she admits to receiving preferential treatment from Twitch staff regarding punishments for breaking terms of service.
But VICE took this section of his video to mean he was implying that Alinity was “asking for it”, due to her sexualized content.
According to the article:
“Kjellberg chastised Alinity for filing the claim, and suggested that Alinity somehow deserves the abuse she is getting online for wearing revealing clothes.”
The article perhaps missed the point of this section, which was not necessarily to ‘chastise’ Alinity, but rather to highlight the hypocrisy in accusing PewDiePie of spreading a negative image of women to a young, impressionable audience.
The only one asking for it is Vice for a lawsuit for slander. pic.twitter.com/BkYX6TASPi
— ƿ૯ωძɿ૯ƿɿ૯ (@pewdiepie) May 25, 2018
As the most subscribed YouTuber on Twitch, PewDiePie is likely experienced in articles which perhaps miss the point of sections of his videos, and result in skewed headlines.
For now, it seems the debate with Alinity has been settled, with no rebuttal from the streamer being posted since.