Twitch streamer AngelBePlayin gets banned for saying they had to “destroy more heterosexuals”

To their surprise, Twitch streamer AngelBePlayin received a notice that their Twitch channel had been banned indefinitely, citing the reason as violent hate speech.

As Twitch was one of the streamer's primary sources of income, this came as a devastating shock, especially since they had not streamed in the last two days. They then took to Twitter to get answers from Twitch on why exactly they were suspended since the streamer had no idea when they would have spewed the alleged hate speech.

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Hate speech or joke? AngelBePlayin argues their case against being indefinitely banned on Twitch

After posting this initial tweet, Angel then discovered why they were banned. It was a message they had sent in a friends chat, where they joked about "destroying more heterosexuals" in the video game Mario Kart.

The supposed hate speech in question here was the line "destroy more heterosexuals," being said in a joking manner when talking about winning more races in the game.

The reason cited angered Angel, who then went on a rant about the injustice of the ban, saying that they had received hate speech on Twitch and the staff had done nothing about it:

"Twitch taking action to defend straight people and banning my channel when they have ignored and left their BIPOC and Queer creators to deal with a ridiculous amount of hate speech time and time again is RIDICULOUS???"

Twitter users showed they're supportive of the streamer's predicament, agreeing that a permanent ban is an overreaction on Twitch's part.

One user related the situation to Pokimane's latest ban, specifically how she was only banned for 2 days, leaving many people annoyed that she wasn't disciplined more harshly by Twitch.

The situation does have a strong point in favor of Twitch, and that's how the message was still sent, regardless of intention. Twitch took its steps to reduce hate speech on the site, and it seems that this was deemed as such on base value.

However, banning Angel outright with no warning or given reason is an overstep on Twitch's part. There should have been proper communication over the issue, and a chance to let Angel give the needed context or reasoning for their words.

This situation could be beneficial to the streamer, as it is quite apparent that people support them during this hardship, and hopefully, those people will continue to support them should their channel be reinstated. If their channel does become unbanned, it is more likely to grow because of the ban, as shown by plenty of streamers having massive turnouts to their first stream back after a ban.

So it seems like this attention to the issue will more than likely push Twitch into reconsideration over the ban, and if they do overturn their decision, Angel will hopefully be better off from the stressful situation.

Note: This article reflects the writer's personal views.