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There are over 400 hours of video footage uploaded to YouTube every minute. But the single biggest star on the platform is Swedish vlogger Felix Kjellberg.

Known as PewDiePie, Kjellberg has built up a loyal following of 49 million subscribers thanks to his energetic and flamboyant style. So far this year his channel has racked up 13 billion views.

But the home-grown superstar has this week published a video claiming that he will delete his channel and start all over again when he hits 50 million.

The reason, he states, is because of changes YouTube is making that push overtly clickbaity videos towards users rather than the channels they've actively subscribed to.

"All I want is that the people that subscribe to me watch my videos," he says in the 10-minute piece-to-camera.

He goes on to accuse YouTube of promoting "videos that have nothing to do with personality, has nothing to do with content, just has a really great title and a really great thumbnail."

It's worth pointing out that PewDiePie is a big deal for YouTube. He worked for the Google-owned platform producing premium content for its YouTube Red service.

(Image: Getty)

“YouTube is trying to kill my channel. It is clear. It is happening if you watch my analytics. It is all going down,” said Kjellberg, who made an estimated $15 million (£12 million) from the service last year.

"I've decided the only way to stop my channel from dying - I know you are going to think I am joking - but I am going to delete my channel."

Following his video, Kjellberg said he heard from YouTube and that they were looking into the issues. He posted a couple of updates on Twitter.

Mirror Online has contacted YouTube for a comment about this issue and we heard back from a spokesperson denying any changes are being made that would affect video views.

“Some creators have expressed concerns around a drop in their subscriber numbers,” we were told.

“We've done an extensive review and found there have been no decreases in creators subscriber numbers beyond what normally happens when viewers either unsubscribe from a creator's channel or when YouTube removes spammed subscribers.

"We do the latter to ensure that all creator subscriber numbers are accurate.”

You can watch PewDiePie's entire video below - but be warned - he swears a lot .

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