Dr. Disrespect Finally Breaks His Silence On Twitch Ban, And It’s Not Good

It’s been a weird week for the video game community. And I mean weirder than a normal week, which is usually already pretty strange.

Things kicked off with some startling accusations about Destiny 2 streamer SayNoToRage which quickly overflowed into a budding #MeToo movement that, within just a few days, has seen numerous streamers and video game developers fall from grace, including the director of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and other Ubisoft executives.

Then, out of the blue, mega-Twitch streamer Guy “Dr. Disrespect” Beahm was banned, apparently permanently, for reasons that have yet to be made clear.

Twitch released a statement so generic it’s honestly not worth printing but I’ll do it anyways because we must do our journalistic duty even if giant corporations can’t be bothered with even the mildest scrap of transparency.

Here it 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.”

Great, how noble. Though, truth be told, Twitch does not have a particularly sterling reputation in this regard.

Most of what we know so far comes from some few with inside sources like eSports journalist Rod Breslau who is, in my humble opinion, one of the best video game journalists on the planet and someone whose work you should absolutely follow. He’s tweeted that the reason for the ban is not DMCA related and that his sources have told him the reason but he’s not comfortable sharing it publicly due to the sensitivity of the subject:

Beyond this, mum’s the word.

But now Dr. Disrespect himself has spoken up, sending out a public tweet on the Twitch ban:

“Twitch has not notified me on the specific reason behind their decision… Firm handshakes to all for the support during this difficult time,” writes Beahm.

I have some issues with this. First and foremost, it makes no sense. There are two big reasons why it makes no sense and probably several other smaller reasons.

Reason #1 — Why wait so long to tweet this very brief statement? If Twitch banned me, and I was a prominent streamer, and they didn’t tell me why . . . I would be on Twitter in a flash saying so. I wouldn’t let all this mystery and gossip go wild online without at the very least saying “Hey I have no idea what’s going on right now and Twitch won’t tell me.” Beahm waited a day before tweeting anything. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances for this—he was camping in some remote wilderness, perhaps—but as of right now, it makes no sense.

Reason #2 — This statement only reveals one data point—that Twitch hasn’t told Beahm why he was banned. It leaves out some other big factors, such as whether or not Dr. Disrespect is aware of the reason himself. It stands to reason that whatever happened, he knows. It seems incredibly unlikely, given Reason #1, that he is unaware and completely in the dark about the reasons for the ban whether or not Twitch communicated this to him directly. If sources are telling journalists like Breslau what’s going on, surely the doctor himself is aware.

Unless . . . something even worse has happened and Twitch and the handful of people who know what’s going on aren’t allowed to tell Beahm anything. That conjures up some very bad scenarios which I won’t delve into here—it’s not polite to speculate on something of this nature, after all. But it’s certainly strange, and Dr. Disrespect’s statement only furthers the confusion and dread we’re all feeling over this.

I would like more transparency from all involved, quite frankly. All this opacity and hush hush nonsense does is fuel speculation and rumor and nobody deserves that. The truth will out, as they say. It always does. May as well rip off the band-aid and get it over with. The fact that Twitch hasn’t even told Beahm the reasons (assuming that’s true) is absolutely absurd. It’s certainly no way to treat one of your biggest stars—even a star I’m not personally a fan of. It’s very, um, disrespectful.

Hopefully we get to the bottom of this soon.

What do you make of all this? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.