'Roblox' Bans PewDiePie, Then Unbans Him, Then Bans Just His Name

In a hopeful, but desperate attempt to stay above Indian music label T-Series in the race for most subscribers, YouTube king Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg streamed himself playing some Roblox. And for doing so, Roblox banned his account.

Earlier this week, the YouTuber created a Roblox server and streamed himself playing various Roblox games alongside his viewers. And not long after the stream ended, Roblox mysteriously deleted his game and terminated Pewds' account.

Why did the team behind the popular MMO do this? Well, for awhile it was unclear, though it seemed to stem from an issue with his account name "pewdie123t32," which was deemed inappropriate. That said, a couple days later, and after considerable backlash on social media, the game reinstated PewDiePie's account, but the "pewdie" memes are still being targeted by the game's moderation team, as well as any other account that makes reference to PewDiePie.

"We wanted to provide some context on the situation with PewDiePie," wrote an official developer forum post. "Roblox is committed to providing a safe and civil platform for our players, including blocking memes that represent or are synonymous for behavior that falls outside of our community standards. In December, "pewdie" became one of these negative memes on Roblox. As such, we began blocking the creation of new usernames that incorporated the term 'pewdie.' The legacy account that PewDiePie used in his livestream was incorrectly banned as part of the administration of this policy. His legacy account is being reinstated.

"As with every user, we have a zero tolerance policy for inappropriate behavior on Roblox that violates our terms of use or community guidelines, including discriminatory speech or actions based on race or ethnic origin, national origin, religion or religious affiliation, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. If a violation occurs, that user account will be banned."

In other words, PewDiePie's account has been unbanned, but if you're a Roblox player, it's probably best to not make anything that refers to the YouTuber, otherwise you'll be at risk of being banned, as many users who did as much already have.

Roblox is available for PC, Mac, Xbox One, and mobile devices. As of September 2018, it has over 70 million monthly active users -- a number that is unlikely to ever include PewDiePie again.