5 mo. ago • 95%

Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees

www.theverge.com Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees

The reason behind his ban has been a mystery.

EDIT: Dr Disrespect has made a full statement regarding the ban.

Twitch abruptly permabanned one of its biggest names (Guy Beahm a.k.a. Dr Disrespect) from their platform back in 2020 without explanation. Four years later, two former Twitch employees have now spoken up, alleging that he was banned for sexting with a minor through the Twitch Whispers app and attempting to meet up with her at TwitchCon.

This came two years after a settled lawsuit between Twitch and Beahm, where neither party admitted to any wrongdoing, and his contract was paid.

Other notes and links:

The Twitter post made by former Twitch employee, Cody Conners (@evoli)
Esports journalist Rod "Slasher" Breslau (@slasher), who previously tweeted that he had been told by 'credible sources' about why Beahm was banned, but couldn't say anything due to the sensitivity of the subject, has also corroborated what Cody Conners confirmed.
The other former Twitch employee who spoke to the Verge asked to remain anonymous.
Response from Dr Disrespect (@DrDisrespect) via Twitter denying any wrongdoing.
Midnight Society (@12am) announcing on Twitter that they have cut all ties with Dr Disrespect following these allegations. This is an indie game studio that the Doc was a co-founder of.
Turtle Beach have seemingly dropped their partnership with Dr Disrespect. All of his branded merch has been removed from their website.

Technology @lemmy.zip Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees

38 comments

Shocking the guy who was 'playing' a dumass ragelord 'character' turned out to be a POS in real life.

57
- It's important to be said that you have to be very careful when playing a satire character, because if you're not you will just become the satire character. Larry the Cable Guy is not even from the south. If you're doing something ironically or you like something ironically you have to make sure that it's something that you're okay with doing unironically or that you really take care to separate yourself from that thing in certain ways otherwise you will start to believe, like, and/or do those things unironically
  
  25
  
  As Kurt Vonnegut put it in Mother Night: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
  
  35
- Allegedly.
  
  Edit 1: Downvotes for not jumping to a conclusion with no actual proof. Okey dokey.
  
  Edit 2: I hadn't seen his post on Twitter that was made around the same time as my comment.
  
  -21
  
  Actual proof of what? That Dr. Disrespect sent private messages to a minor? I guess I would take him at his own word since he tweeted admitting it hours ago.
  
  https://x.com/DrDisrespect/status/1805662419261460986
  
  35
  
  He admitted it
  
  4
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  4
Yeah well the guy was a fucking asshole, this is to nones shock

32
So he was messaging a minor and Twitch just got him off their platform and nothing more happened? No repercussions for what he was allegedly doing from a legal standpoint?

24
- Twitch probably doesn't care beyond reputational damage/liability.
  
  a settled lawsuit between Twitch and Beahm, where neither party admitted to any wrongdoing, and his contract was paid.
  
  In fact it sounds like Twitch made an effort to keep it quiet, which was successful until these former employees spoke out (hope they don't suffer consequences)
  
  Edit to add: Which is not to say there couldn't be separate consequences. It's just not going to come from Twitch. I'm sure a certain three letter agency is quite a bit more interested in Beahm now.
  
  20
  
  If Twitch helped to cover up a criminal act, they'd be opening themselves up to liability. Especially since they supposedly provide the product used for the communication AND apparently knew about it.
  
  The simpler answer is, the reality isn't as simple as the tweet makes it out to be. Twitch may have thought/known the user was a minor based off internal-only information, like previous messages, account information, etc. not anything in the conversation with Doc. In that case Doc would not have known they were a minor, and thus his actions would not have been illegal, and it would not be a story at all if Twitch reached out to advise Doc that the user was a minor... instead Twitch acted unilaterally and essentially burned the contract in the process. That would fit the same "facts" we've been told from all parties, but with a vastly different context that also matches the lack of criminal liability.
  
  6
- Most of the times when people get busted for "chatting" to kids online, it's because the child is actually a law enforcement officer who has gotten the person to admit their intent in a way that isn't legally questionable.
  
  Even if twitch reported the allegations to law enforcement, it's unlikely any prosecutor is going to bring up charges on a famous/wealthy person unless they have an open and shut case. Which is really rare outside of sting operations.
  
  4
  
  I still don't understand why Twitch would pay up in that case.
  
  3
- Without seeing correspondace hard to tell...
  
  Also many state age of consent is 16... So if no nudes, there is really nothing illegal about it.
  
  Just looks pathetic
  
  3
- If what he did wasnt illegal, then no.
  
  1
  
  So what would he do that's not illegal but bad enough to get banned? What would he do that would also explain why people are saying he was messaging minors for a meet up? Why would Twitch pay out the contract?
  
  0
Permanently Deleted

21
EDIT: Dr Disrespect has made a full statement.

THE TWITCH BAN

Hello, I'd like to make a quick statement..

Lets cut the fucking bullshit, as you know there's no filter with me. I've always been up front and real with you guys on anything that I can be up front about, and I'm always willing to accept responsibility... which is why I'm here now.

First and foremost I do want to apologize to everyone in my community as well as those close to me, my team, and everyone at Midnight Society Game Studio.

A lot of people have been left in the dark about what happened yesterday with midnight society and I, and we made the painful decision collectively, to have me step down. Our team is full of incredibly talented and good people that have high career ambitions and families and i'd never want jeopardize the culture we have carefully crafted.

Everyone has been wanting to know why I was banned from twitch, but for reasons outside of my control, I was not allowed to say anything for the last several years. Now that two former twitch employees have publicly disclosed the accusations, I can now tell you my side of the story regarding the ban.

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement. Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me.

Now, from a moral standpoint I'll absolutely take responsibility. I should have never entertained these conversations to begin with. That's on me. That's on me as an adult, a husband and a father. It should have never happened. I get it. I’m not perfect and I’ll fucking own my shit. This was stupid.

Now, with all this said, don't get it fucking mistaken, I’ve seen all the remarks and labels being throw around so loosely. Social media is a destruction zone. I'm no fucking predator or pedophile. Are you kidding me? Anyone that truely knows me fucking knows where I stand on those things with those types of people. Fuck that. That's a different level of disgust that I fucking hate even hearing about. Don't be labeling me as the worst of the worst with your exaggerations. Get the fuck outta here with that shit.

But I think I've said what I needed to say regarding the ban itself. That's it. That's why twitch made the decision in 2020.

To my team, community, industry friends that have supported me, I apologize, I wish I could've said all this sooner. You guys have always showed me and my family love and support throughout all these years we love you guys like you can't imagine. I have the fucking best community and circle. If any of this has made you uncomfortable, I get it. You don't have to support me anymore but just know you have always been greatly appreciated.

But trust me when I say this...to all my haters that live and breath social media with zero real life experience, I don't give a fuck about you.

Finally, if you're uncomfortable with this entire statement and think I'm a piece of shit, that's fine. But I'm not fucking going anywhere. I’m not the same guy that made this mistake all those years ago. I'm taking an extended vacation with my family as mentioned on stream and I'm coming back with a heavy weight off my shoulders.

They want me to disappear... yeah fucking right.

19
- Such a fucking sleazebag. A few hours ago he's said all accusations against him are completely false, but now he's figured out there's no coming back, because his money is going away, and he's trying to pull the rug back. Fuck directly off.
  
  Anyone who ever liked watching this narcissistic pedo is beyond my understanding. What he's saying isn't even damage control. He immediately turned it around, and made himself the victim
  
  28
  
  I'm sure it was well crafted by his legal team.
  
  4
- I'd trust him if he said that at the time this incident happened. Not fucking 2 years after that. Even Yandev's apology felt more genuine, and that says something.
  
  15
- tHey WAnt mE To diSaPpeAr
  
  Maybe if you’re thinking of going within 300 yards of an elementary school
  
  Definitely don’t want you to disappear to Epstein Island
  
  6
- Zero receipts, entire essay with little to no point being made, starts off talking about how honest, responsible and how much he totally hates pedophiles. While posting an admission to sexting a minor, years after telling the world he'd sue Twitch for a ban that he let people speculate for years so he could avoid responsibility.
  
  Unless he shows the world what exactly he texted the minor soon, this statement is one hell of a self inflicted wound for his case.
  
  6
- 3
He should switch over to Twitter, I hear they encourage that kind of stuff.

8
I'm not particularly surprised.

7
Twitch's behaviour is mildly disturbing for this case, in that they were monitoring Beahm's private DMs, and then tried to hide it with a settlement when wrongdoing was found (to hide that they were monitoring prominent users of the whisper system?)

5
- Or... the whispers were reported by the other party, or detected by an automatic abuse detection system, they paid off his contract because he was suing them for it and they weren't confident it was a good investment to fight
  
  7
Never heard of the dude, but good. Hope he gets tried and sent to prison.

5
I used to watch him pre-adultery controversy. He is entertaining but man this guy is clearly a shit person outside of his persona.

4
Not a Doc watcher, not a big fan, but the Internet's hard-on for taking claims at face value even without any actual evidence pisses me off. Public opinion doesn't require innocence until proven guilty, but it's a good idea. There have been enough situations of people lying about shit for some personal gain, especially lately.

I have only seen one situation that seems to match ALL of the claims from the hearsay on the Twitch side, because NONE of the people tweeting are first hand sources (they are repeating what they've heard from others), that matches Doc's comments about it, AND the fact that there were no criminal charges filed (these are public record). Because otherwise if it is true at face value, that means Twitch actively helped cover up the fact a streamer was messaging minors like that, AND paid the the contract price as if THEY violated the contract, which certainly has a morality clause in it that Doc would have clearly violated if that were true.

Doc was exchanging messages with a user via Twitch Whispers.

Twitch thought this user was a minor through internal information, like previous messages/chats, account info, etc. but not something another user would have access to.

The conversation itself did NOT include information about whether the user was a minor.

Doc would not have known that user was a minor, because it was not in the conversations.

Twitch acts on the information they have, cancelling the contract under something like a morality clause.

Doc would have no idea why he was suddenly permanently banned without any warning if they acted on this information without contacting him prior.

Through the litigation it is determined that either the user was in fact NOT a minor, or they WERE but Doc would not have a way to know that based on the messages alone.

That would mean Twitch, not Doc, had violated the contract by unilaterally cancelling it, and would need to pay it out, AND that there would be no criminal act to prosecute, hence no wrongdoing, even if he DID message a minor.

Depending on the wording of the NDA for that settlement, he almost surely cannot talk about specifics, hence the vague legalese responses, because that's the limit of what he's allowed to say without Twitch also agreeing to release more info. That settlement likely leaves Doc's ban in place in exchange for paying out the contract, Twitch not admitting anything, and Doc likely wouldn't want to continue working with them after a reaction and contractual cancellation of that magnitude without even an attempt at contact.

That would fit all of the "facts" as we have heard them from every party, without any criminal charges, with Doc getting paid, and Twitch officially silent. The largest red flag for the "he knew he was messaging a minor to meet up" is no prosecution at all, not even a paper arrest and charges later being dropped. There was never any public legal involvement, which indicates there was never an actual crime, which is what is being claimed.

Also, Cody tweeted multiple times advertising his band's show and stating if it sold out he'd talk more about it. So at that point, he basically loses all credibility as far as I'm concerned, not using it as marketing for his shows. Without hard evidence it not just looks like a way to try and boost his band's sales while he knows everyone will be talking about him and looking him up.
https://x.com/evoli/status/1679536544863113217
https://x.com/evoli/status/1730588093907161579
-3
- Not sure why you seem so personally invested but he admitted to it so a lot of this conjecture is moot. There's links to his statement ITT.
  
  11
  
  Not sure why you seem so personally invested
  
  There's nothing personal, I just expect accusations like this to have real evidence. All the "evidence" we had through Twitter was hearsay, and we've all played telephone before. Hearsay is no different than gossip, and it quite often is incorrect, that's why it's not admissible in court. Sorry for actually wanting proof of egregious claims instead of just trusting a former employee, who already had questionable trustability, and who was using the publicity to promote their own shit. Not exactly a great source of accurate information.
  
  he admitted to it so a lot of this conjecture is moot. There's links to his statement ITT.
  
  My post here was made around the same time his tweet was posted. In fact looking at the times, it was posted here the same minute of his last edit. So, no chance to have even seen reports about that response yet, nonetheless read it.
  
  0
- Permanently Deleted
  
  4
This whole situation was weird to begin with. Not a single iota of actual evidence was provided from either side. From Dr Disrespect I understand, because the settlement terms absolutely barred him from talking about it.

Regarding his statement, not a surprise. If anything illegal did happen, Twitch would have been required to inform law enforcement and he would have been arrested.

-8

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