PewDiePie has once again attracted controversy, after fans of the popular YouTuber released ransomware designed to lock people's data until his subscriber count hits 100 million. The release of the ransomware comes amid the ongoing battle between PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjelberg, and Indian music channel T-Series. "Subscribe to PewDiePie," stated the ransom note that accompanied the Pewcrypt ransomware. "If T-Series beats PewDiePie the private key will be deleted and your files gone forever!" We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

PewDiePie's six-year reign as the world's most popular YouTube channel appears be finally coming to an end, as Indian channel T-series once again overtook his subscriber count after weeks of see-sawing between the two accounts. Both channels passed 90 million subscribers in March, following a neck-and-neck battle that began in October 2018 when T-Series first began to challenge the dominance of the Swedish star. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, waged a campaign to keep ahead of the Indian music channel that saw supporters go to increasingly extreme measures to boost his sub count. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

YouTube is rolling out its "SmartReply" technology to YouTube, meaning that comments you see on the site might not actually have been written by a human. The technology analyses messages and then uses artificial intelligence to guess what a person might want to say in response to them. Users can then select that response and post it, without ever having to write anything out for themselves. It has already appeared within Gmail and Android's Messages app, and is open to developers who can integrate it within their own app. But it is now coming to YouTube, which represents the most public place any messages written by the SmartReply software will be seen.

Youtuber Nikki Lilly has spoken about the importance of sharing bad days on social media to help people feel "less alone" in the world. On Tuesday, the 14-year-old vlogger appeared on ITV's Lorraine and opened up about using her social media platform for good. "I do have bad days and I think it's really important to share when I'm having a bad day because everyone can relate to that," Lilly told television presenter Christine Bleakley. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

A new tool has demonstrated how YouTube's secretive recommendation algorithm directs users to videos promoting extremist ideologies and conspiracy theories. The TheirTube project, developed by creative designer Tomo Kihara, allows people to "step inside someone else's YouTube bubble" by showing them videos recommended by YouTube. The tool shows how the world's most popular video-sharing platform looks like to people from different political demographics, such as conservatives and liberals, as well as other personas like fruitarians, climate change deniers and'prepper' survivalists. "The proverb'Fish discover water last' also describes how we are blind to the recommendation bubbles we are in," Mr Kihara said. "Nowadays with an AI curating almost all of what we see, the only way for a person to get a better perspective on their own media environment is to see what others' bubbles look like."