New details have emerged about the Twitch ban of streamer DrDisrespect. On June 27, Rolling Stone published an article written by an insider who has been following the case for 4 years. A Twitch employee explains the circumstances of the ban and that DrDisrespect knew he was talking to a minor.
What questions does the new report answer?
Our video on DrDisrespect reflects the status of the case about a week ago, when DrDisrespect still had advertising deals and a career:
DrDisrespect was a celebrity on Twitch – his ban remains a big secret to this day
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Where does the new information come from? Rod Breslau, known as Slasher, wrote an article for Rolling Stone and spoke to several sources, including the head of YouTube Gaming at the time and someone who was involved in the ban process at Twitch at the time.
Breslau himself said he had heard about the case from credible sources in June 2020, but decided not to report on it. He considered the topic too sensitive at the time.
Other sources also say they only decided to talk about the issue when former Twitch employee Cody Connors got the ball rolling with his tweet on June 22, which did not mention DrDisrespect by name.
This is how the permanent ban from Twitch 2020 came about
How did the ban come about in the first place? One open question was why DrDisrespect was permanently banned in 2020 for chat messages he sent in 2017 via Twitch’s “Whisper” system.
Apparently, Twitch only took a closer look at the streamer’s chat messages in 2020.
This was due to pressure on Twitch to investigate allegations against streamers. The pressure arose in mid-2020 as a result of a New York Times article about sexual harassment and sexual misconduct by streamers on Twitch (via nytimes).
Therefore, in June 2020, Twitch decided to actively address this issue. Only 5 days later, DrDisrespect was banned from Twitch.
In the tweet of June 22, 2020, Twitch announced that it would address the issue, only 5 days later DrDisrespect was permanently banned:
DrDisrespect knew she was underage – but continued anyway
This is what the Twitch employee says: A former Twitch employee who was responsible for security on the platform told Rolling Stone under the protection of anonymity:
There was no confusion. The messages sent after confirmation were no less graphic and sexually explicit than before, and I think more so than the ‘too close to inappropriate’ rating would suggest.
In his tweet from June 25, DrDisrespect used the phrase “too much towards inappropriate” to explain what had happened between him and the minor. The statement from the former Twitch employee shows that it must have been much more.
According to the Twitch employee, the decision to permanently ban DrDisrespect was made quickly in 2020 because his behavior was so serious.
The news will not be made public.
Twitch has reported DrDisrespect to a center for abused children
Another source tells Rolling Stone: DrDisrespect has also been reported to a center for missing and abused children, as required by law.
But the source does not know what happened from there.
YouTube boss had heard rumors, but nothing concrete
Did YouTube know? The man in charge at the time, Ryan Wyatt, explains to Rolling Stone that DrDisrespect was not offered a contract because of “rumors surrounding the circumstances of his Twitch ban.”
Journalists and Twitch employees told YouTube employees that the ban was about inappropriate messages to minors. But that seemed to be just one of many rumors surrounding DrDisrespect’s Twitch ban:
The unfortunate thing about the whole thing was that there were so many rumors floating around the industry, one of which said that a minor was involved. But no one could provide any first-hand knowledge or evidence, and because of these rumors, there was no reason to consider a deal with DrDisrespect, and not providing any evidence means you can’t trade when the terms of service are violated.
The whole situation became even more confusing when Twitch settled and actually said there was no wrongdoing, which caused everyone in the industry to dismiss the rumors, but even then there was never any reason to make a deal with him after the ban.
From Wyatt’s perspective, the situation was confusing even for decision-makers in the gaming industry. The out-of-court settlement seemed to contradict the rumors and some companies signed deals with DrDisrespect again. But YouTube did not.
YouTube has now taken action and demonetized DrDisrespect’s current and future channels. The streamer himself is taking a break. It is not clear when or if he will return from this break to stream again: YouTube cuts off DrDisrespect’s money – because of 7-year-old messages on Twitch