Three months ago Dr Disrespect signed an exclusivity deal with Twitch for a “life-changing” fortune. But now, his account has been wiped squeaky clean and his thirty thousand subscribers have been refunded. Twitch has nonetheless “permanently banned” Guy Beahm, aka Dr Disrespect, for something he did in violation of the company’s rules.
It seems clear enough that he’s been banned, but bizarrely, Twitch won’t confirm this so we’ll optimistically call it a suspension for now. Twitch’s official statement is: “As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
It’s difficult to ignore the timing of his suspension. In the days previous, allegations against a shocking number of streamers came to light and Twitch announced it would start permanently banning streamers for sexual harassment and assault.
We do not currently know whether Twitch has even banned Beahm, much less the facts around why Disrespect disappeared on Friday, because the company has repeatedly refused to confirm even a ban.
It’s the first word from Beahm since his channel abruptly disappeared from Twitch on Friday afternoon, and it’s clearly designed to suggest that Twitch is in the wrong. Perhaps he knows full well what’s going on and is hiding behind the words “specific reason,” but we have no current evidence of anything right now again, neither Twitch nor Disrespect have even confirmed that he’s being suspended, much less banned, much less permanently. To be blunt, we’ve seen nothing that rules out the possibility that Disrespect pulled himself off Twitch for some reason, however unlikely that may seem.
The only thing Twitch has provided is this statement, which it declined to connect to Beahm, even when we explained that it leaves open the possibility that Beahm has not been banned.
“As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.”
It’s quite possible that all will be revealed in due time, and all the publications currently reporting that Dr Disrespect has been permanently banned will look justified after the fact. Perhaps there’s also a very good reason why some facts need to be withheld.
The only facts available right now are that Dr Disrespect has disappeared from Twitch; Twitch and Beahm won’t say why; and a lot of people are wondering when we’ll all know.
