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Twitch gives streamer a reported 14-day ban for saying he’s OK with the genocide of PalestiniansAsmongold slapped down for racist tirade
Asmongold slapped down for racist tirade
Content warning for hate speech in the paragraphs ahead.
Asmongold appears to agree that Israel’s actions are genocide, but he seemingly thinks the Palestinians deserve it, based on his own, sweepingly racist assessments of Islam and of Palestinian culture.
“These people are not your allies,” he went on. “They’re not the same as us. They come from an inferior culture that is horrible. It kills people for their identity, and it is directly antithetical to everything Western values stand for, and it is an inferior culture in all ways. It is that simple. No, I don’t feel bad for them, I don’t feel sorry for them, I don’t care.”
Naturally, a number of people have lodged complaints about Asmongold’s tirade. And of course, he has now apologised. “Looking back on it, I was way too much of an asshole about the Palestine thing,” he wrote onXitter, adding “my bad” and “of course no one deserves to have their life destroyed even if they do things or have views I find regressive”. In conclusion, “you guys deserve more than me saying stupid shit like that, I’ll do better”.
Twitch’s ban only applies to Asmongold’s secondary “Zackrawrr” account, but it also means he can’t stream via his primary account either. However, he’s still free to publish videos on Youtube, where he has about 4.85 million combined subscribers. Asmongold himself hasreportedly earned many millions from Twitch, more than enough on paper to ride out any temporary suspension of service.
All this is of broader relevance because Twitch, a streaming service that focuses on video games, is absolutely huge. It’s one ofthe most visited websites in the world. As such, it’s a prominent internet “town square” where the most-subscribed streamers can potentially shape the views of millions of people - as the management themselves acknowledged back in 2021, when they shut down Trump’s account to avoid any further incitement to violence.
