New details have emerged regarding the Twitch ban of streamer DrDisrespect. On June 27, Rolling Stone published an article from an insider who has been involved with 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 are answered in the new report?
- Why was DrDisrespect banned in 2020 for something he did in 2017?
- Did he know that his conversation partner was a minor?
- Did he really only have conversations with her that “sometimes drifted too much in an inappropriate direction”?
- Did Twitch involve the authorities to protect minors?
- Did YouTube know the reasons for the ban and therefore never offered him an exclusive contract?
Our video on DrDisrespect reflects the state of the case about a week ago, when DrDisrespect still had advertising deals and a career:
Where do the new information come from? Rod Breslau, known as Slasher, has written an article for Rolling Stone and has spoken with several sources, including the head of YouTube Gaming at the time and someone who was involved in the ban process at Twitch back then.
Breslau himself stated that he heard credible sources about the case in June 2020 but decided not to report on it. He considered the topic too sensitive at that time.
Other sources also say they only decided to speak on the matter after former Twitch employee Cody Connors tweeted on June 22, indirectly initiating the discussion without naming DrDisrespect.
This is how the permanent ban from Twitch came about in 2020
How did the ban even come about? An open question was why DrDisrespect was permanently banned in 2020 for chat messages sent via Twitch’s “Whisper” system that he had sent in 2017.
Apparently, Twitch only examined the streamer’s chat messages more closely in 2020.
This was due to pressure on Twitch to investigate allegations against streamers. The pressure arose in mid-2020 from a New York Times article about sexual harassment and misconduct by streamers on Twitch (via nytimes).
Thus, Twitch decided in June 2020 to actively address the issue. Just 5 days later, DrDisrespect was banned from Twitch.
In the tweet from June 22, 2020, Twitch announced it would address the issue; just 5 days later, DrDisrespect was permanently banned:
DrDisrespect knew she was a minor – but continued anyway
This is what the Twitch employee says: A former Twitch employee responsible for security on the platform told Rolling Stone anonymously:
- DrDisrespect would have known that the person he was talking to was still a minor, yet that did not bother him. For him, it was not a problem.
- The messages were just as sexually explicit and just as clear.
There was no confusion. The messages sent after the confirmation were no less graphic and sexually explicit than before, and I think more than the classification ‘too much in the inappropriate direction’ would suggest.
DrDisrespect used the phrase “too much in the inappropriate direction” in his tweet on June 25 to explain what had happened between him and the minor. The statement from the former Twitch employee indicates that it must have been much more than that.
According to the Twitch employee, a swift decision was made in 2020 to permanently ban DrDisrespect because his behavior was considered so severe.
The messages will not be made public.
Twitch reported DrDisrespect to a center for abused children
Another source told Rolling Stone: DrDisrespect was also reported to a center for missing and abused children, as required by law.
The source does not know how things progressed from there.
YouTube head had heard rumors but nothing concrete
Did YouTube know? The person responsible at the time, Ryan Wyatt, told Rolling Stone that DrDisrespect was not offered a contract due to “rumors surrounding the circumstances of his Twitch ban.”
Journalists and Twitch employees told YouTube employees that the ban was related to inappropriate messages to minors. However, that seemed to be only one of many rumors surrounding DrDisrespect’s Twitch ban:
The unfortunate thing about the whole situation was that there were so many rumors in the industry, one of which stated that a minor was involved. But no one could present firsthand knowledge or evidence, and because of these rumors, there was no reason to consider a deal with DrDisrespect, and lacking evidence means you cannot act on a violation of the terms of service.
The situation became even more confusing when Twitch agreed and actually stated that there was no misconduct, which led everyone in the industry to dismiss the rumors, but even then, there was never a 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 settlement seemed to contradict the rumors, and some companies resumed deals with DrDisrespect. However, YouTube did not.
In the meantime, YouTube has taken action and has demonetized both current and future channels of DrDisrespect. The streamer himself is taking a break. It is unclear when and if he will return from this break to stream again: YouTube cuts off DrDisrespect’s funding – due to 7-year-old messages on Twitch
