A YouTuber yesterday said he decided to back out of a sponsorship deal with a Chinese mobile game company, after it demanded he take down a comment defending Taiwan’s sovereignty.
User Davie504, real name Davide Biale from Italy, has 13.6 million followers on YouTube, where he posts content playing bass and guitar.
Five years ago, the company “tried to silence me like they were running a covert government operation,” he said in a video posted yesterday.
Photo: screen grab from YouTube
The original YouTube comment read: “Taiwan IS a country, noobs.”
Biale stayed in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic, and his wife is Taiwanese.
Five years ago, the unnamed mobile game company offered him US$60,000 for a 60-second shoutout video and an extra US$15,000 to be reimbursed for giveaways of bass guitars, totaling US$75,000 in compensation, Biale said.
He said he spent US$10,000 on buying bass guitars to gift to fans.
After the company approved the video and signed the contract, they contacted him and asked him to delete the Taiwan comment, or they would cancel the entire sponsorship, including the giveaway reimbursement, he said.
He said he refused to delete the comment, as it is “common knowledge” and he is not a political person.
He instead canceled the sponsorship agreement, published the video without mention of the company, doubled the number of basses in the giveaway and lost the US$10,000 he had already spent, he added.
As a result, he said he lost “the biggest sponsorship offer of my life.”
Biale made the video yesterday in defense of claims he was a “sellout” for accepting sponsorships.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday briefed her party’s Central Standing Committee regarding her scheduled visit to the US between Monday next week and June 16, saying that her purpose would be to persuade the US that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution was a “one China” constitution that would foster stable and peaceful cross-strait relations. The ROC Constitution is the most important defense for all Taiwanese citizens, as it upholds our democracy and has contributed to our robust economy, which aligns with international and US interests, she said. “We would not be troublemakers and drag the US under,”
RSS