Japanese firefighter has his pay slashed after officials discover his YouTube gaming channel

Authored by euronews.com and submitted by tomb8man

A firefighter in Japan has had his budding career as a gamer cut short after city officials discovered his YouTube channel.

The 33-year-old, who works as a sergeant in the Wakayama fire department in western Japan, started uploading let's play videos of multiplayer strategy games to the streaming site in December 2020.

By October 2021 he had amassed around 15,000 subscribers and made over ¥1 million (€8,700) in advertising revenue, according to Japanese newspaper the Mainichi Shimbun.

But in that same month, city officials in Wakayama received an anonymous tip-off about the firefighter's channel, prompting an investigation.

As the man did not appear in any of his videos, investigators were forced to comb through the 314 videos on his channel in order to identify him by voice.

After admitting to his gaming activities, the firefighter's January paycheck was docked 10 per cent.

"We don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that he was a YouTuber," city official Hidetaka Amano told AFP.

"But it's the fact he was profiting from ads, some of which could be inappropriate in nature".

In making money from Youtube, the man had "betrayed the trust of residents in Wakayama," Amano added.

The issue, city officials argued, was that the advertising revenue from YouTube contravened Japan's Local Public Service Act, which bars public employees from moonlighting in other paid roles - including as gaming content makers.

According to the Mainichi, the man had not realised that his hobby could break the rules.

"My recognition of what would be considered a second job was naive," he reportedly said.

SaharaSaku on January 17th, 2022 at 17:33 UTC »

One thing the article doesn't mention is that he used his wife's name to sign up for the advertising programme. It can be seen as that he was well aware what he was doing and might affected the city official's decision.

coyowile on January 17th, 2022 at 16:06 UTC »

This will also be the end of any promotions because of the dishonorable breaking of his contract. The Japanese take honor and contracts very seriously. I knew a guy who moved to the US because he had dishonored his job in Japan. (I have no idea what or how.) They still harassed him in the US. Honor is a big thing in Japan.

y2knole on January 17th, 2022 at 14:30 UTC »

japan is weird: "In making money from Youtube, the man had "betrayed the trust of residents in Wakayama," Amano added."