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Deadrop developer Midnight Society cuts ties with Dr Disrespect following new Twitch ban allegations (www.rockpapershotgun.com)

submitted 4 months ago by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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Celebrity streamer insists that "I didn't do anything wrong"

Deadrop developers Midnight Society have "terminated" their relationship with studio co-founder and celebrity streamer Herschel "Guy" Beahm, aka "Dr Disrespect", over fresh allegations about the reasons for his infamous Twitch ban in 2020.

At the time of the ban, which came just a few months after Beahm and Twitch announced a two-year exclusivity contract, Twitch commented only that Beahm had been jettisoned for acting "in violation of our Community Guidelines". Beahm himself described the move as "a total shock" in a later conversation with the Washington Post. In August 2021, he took Twitch to court over the ban, but the dispute was eventually settled with neither party admitting any wrongdoing.

Last week, however, former Twitch strategic partnerships account director Cody Conners alleged in a Xitter post that an unnamed person "got banned because [he] got caught sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch Whispers product. He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon. The powers that be could read in plain text. Case closed, gang." (Twitch Whispers is a now-retired private 1-to-1 messaging service.) According to two anonymous former Twitch employees cited by the Verge in a subsequent investigation - one of whom worked on Twitch's trust and safety team at the time of the ban - the unnamed person in question was Beahm.

Beahm hasn't yet addressed these latest claims about his behaviour, beyond tweeting last week that "Listen, I'm obviously tied to legal obligations from the settlement with Twitch but I just need to say what I can say since this is the fucking internet. I didn't do anything wrong, all this has been probed and settled, nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid."

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[-] can@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 months ago

Part of me wants to give some benefit of the doubt

Why? Hasn't his official statement said enough? I have no idea who this guy is. Is he that big?

[-] pipe01@programming.dev 6 points 4 months ago

Used to be the biggest streamer on twitch before he got banned

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

Welp, I'm not on twitch but if I ever heard his name before it never registered. Who's the biggest now? Or just make someone up I'll never know.

[-] Chickenslippers@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Probably the biggest streamer right now is a rainbow six siege streamer named jynxi who averages near 100k viewers

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

Is this real? Or are you just tricking me by using an older game I'd know?

Who can tell

[-] Chickenslippers@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

No tricks here my friend. I don't know how a console playing siege person could become that big but he did it

[+] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today -12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Because I think mob justice is criminal. If Dr Disrespect did wrong then he did wrong, but we don't know anything other than the fact that he has in fact spoken to a person who was under 18, which in itself is not a crime.

Twitch banned him 3 years after the supposed contact between the two, and attempted to go without paying out his contract termination until he started a lawsuit and Twitch settled it.

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate,

This is what he's willing to admit. I wonder what constitutes "inappropriate".

[-] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Twitch turbo ejected the largest streamer on its platform days after the messages were sent, so... likely pretty fucking inappropriate.

These were DMs, so never public, but the "tried to meetup at twitchcon" makes it seem like he was explicitly trying to rape a kid and thats where twitch, who could have just said nothing, hit the "fuck no" button.

Fuck this guy and good on them. Amazon still has some decent people, or at least did.

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago

The messages were sent in 2017. They weren’t reported to Twitch until 2020, at which point they reviewed and took action - that was the whole “Doc got banned and we don’t know why” saga.

Now we know.

[-] Crikeste@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

Defending a pedophile isn’t a good look, Guy.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today -3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I haven't defended him, I've consistently said he might have committed a crime, though that would be unlikely given it was 7 years ago.
Labeling everyone you don't like as a pedophile isn't a good look.

[-] Crikeste@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

Nah, sexually texting a minor isn’t a two sided thing. There is no justification for it. There is no ‘I’m not a pedophile’ about sexually texting a minor. The sexual texting a minor is the intent to do more. You don’t simply ‘play around’ sexually texting a minor.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 0 points 4 months ago

Then don't sexually text any minors. Very simple. Now that I've helped you sort out your odd unrelated moral dilema, do you have anything to say about the Doc?