Ludwig Has Already Been Banned From YouTube

Ludwig Ahgren has broken Twitch records in the last year, amassing an intense following online. That being said, he's no stranger to bans or controversy. The streamer has been banned from Instagram in the past, and when he was banned from YouTube earlier in 2021, the hashtag #freeludwig became popular on Twitter. Now, Ludwig has been banned from YouTube once again, just days after moving his streaming operation to the platform in an exclusive contract deal.

Ludwig recently announced that he'd be leaving Twitch for YouTube, giving fans a playful promotional video advertising the change. In the short skit, Ludwig explained that YouTube was "pretty much the same," but that he wouldn't get in "trouble for playing music" on his new platform. While Twitch has been stricter about copyrighted music after it changed its DMCA rules in mid-2021, that doesn't mean that YouTube won't enforce its own policies regarding copyright-protected content. Unfortunately, Ludwig found that out the hard way.

While streaming on YouTube on Dec. 2, Ludwig suddenly found his channel unavailable. He quickly took to Twitter to share a screenshot of his stream, which was listed as unavailable due to "policy violations." He lightheartedly captioned the tweet, "You could say the switch has been going well." Soon enough, Ludwig revealed why he was banned, posting a video to his second YouTube channel to explain what happened.

In a video titled "I Got Banned," which was posted to his second channel, Ludwig began by showing a screenshot of his banned stream. "It's my third day on YouTube and I got banned from streaming," he laughed. "Which is funny." He explained that he was in the process of watching some of the most "classic, vintage, greatest" YouTube videos of all time in an attempt to find the best one. While browsing, he listened to a brief clip of "Baby Shark," the viral children's song from PinkFong. 

"I'm pretty sure the corporate overlords who own 'Baby Shark' have, like, an iron fist on YouTube," Ludwig said. "And so they took me down."

The streamer noted that it was "kind of crazy" that he'd been on Twitch for years without being banned and then was almost immediately suspended on YouTube after making the jump. Ultimately, Ludwig chalked it all up to "growing pains," saying that he would work through the ban and be back in a few days to livestream again.

Ludwig concluded by musing on the nature of children's music on YouTube, calling it "the worst thing to ever happen" to the platform. While it's unlikely that YouTube will segregate "Baby Shark" on another website anytime soon, at least Ludwig knows to be more careful in the future.