The 30-day prohibitions were reportedly issued at once and were in place after days of social press discussion accusing many pro-Palestinian and Arab Twitch streamers of being racist. Ethan Klein and Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, aka Destiny shared a clip of Fr0gan saying that she “hoped” American soldiers got PTSD during a livestream on X ( formerly Twitter ) and Reddit.
On October 20, Fr0gan issued an apology on X, reading:
Iraq, afghan, syria, syria, and palestine have some of the most gruesome crimes against humanity committed by the US military in the modern era. My anger is directed at those who are now supporting these battle crimes as if they “liberated” my people. it’s brutal and ugly. I apologize for the poor wording at the beginning of the tape. i go onto define in the tape that i do not imply “all” defense, but especially those with no remorse. What I said was out of anger because they are already bombing my household in the name of “liberation” I am aware that talking about these issues in a more sensitive way and that wishing people would suffer is n’t the best way to do so.
However, it appears that Fr0gan was not subject to a ban for what she said on her more current flow but rather for the Rating Streamers board starting on September 21. During the board in problem, the streamers utilized a famous internet meme called a tier list, in which the top of the tier is the “best” or, in this case, the person for whom using “habibi” is most suitable and the bottom was the least tolerable. At the TwitchCon section, the levels were labeled” Muslim Written, Asks Permission, Thinks It’s a Slur, and Loves Sabra”, a guide to Sabra Hummus, a famous brand of chickpeas manufactured in the United States. The GivePlz Twitch channel, which hosts all of the TwitchCon videos, has removed the VOD for the entire second day of the TwitchCon ( which was when Rating Streamers aired ). The Ayyrabs YouTube channel is also showing the picture.
Fr0gan, Capri, and Raffoul are all Arab ( Fr0gan is Muslim, Raffoul is Jewish, and Capri is Christian ) and host a podcast called Ayyrabs together. Middle Eastern Vio is a Middle Eastern girl, DenimsTV is an Egyptian woman. Another streamers who quickly participated in the panels were not Middle Eastern or Arab. They were no banned at the time of release.
On October 19, Klein posted a video to YouTube titled” Twitch Has a Major Problem” in which he said that panel was “kinda Arab good, Jew bad”, because Sabra is a “very popular Hummus brand” in Israel that is” the subject of]a ] pro-Palestine boycott”. Additionally, he shared a picture from the section where Denims jokes that Klein merited his own class for” Zionist.” Then, on a live-stream on YouTube now, October 20, Klein discussed Fr0gan, the” Tier List”, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, and Hasan” Hasanabi” Piker, another mentioned political channel who used to sponsor a present with Klein before the two had a falling out. The live stream was titled” Dan Clancy May Withdraw As CEO of Twitch.”
While Klein was streaming, the ban wave ( which also appeared to include the permanent ban of well-known streamer Sneako, who Klein mentioned in his October 19 YouTube video as an example of someone who should not have been permitted to return to Twitch ) took place. ” 30 day restrictions for saying that some people favor bottom of the barrel chickpeas, but others get two weeks for calling for the massacre of Palestinians.” got it”, Fr0gan posted on X after the bans were announced, referring to Twitch banning channel Zack” Asmongold” Hoyt for 14 days after he said that Muslim people come from” an inferior society” and that he’s” not going to weep a stupid creek when people who have murder that’s baked into their regulations are getting genocided” on a new flow.
Capri also addressed his ban, saying,” Ngl, I’m going to take a few days out and I’m going again life and performance chickpeas just to prove a point. #hummusgate” on X.
Before the restrictions, Raffoul, who is Jewish, wrote on X that” These gods are so anti-semitic I’m the one who made the list on” who you say habibi” and that they try to roll this as” Frogan ranking individuals from Arab to Jew” keep Jews out your stupid mouth during the heated online discussion about the alleged hatred of the board.”
The Anti-Defamation League ( ADL ) announced on X on October 21 that it had spoken with Twitch staff” after becoming aware of several concerning incidents on the social media platform and/or involving Twitch streamers in the past week.”
The official ADL account posted in a thread,” We appreciate @Twitch making the right decision to finally suspend the streamer Frogan for abusing her platform and the @TwitchCon event to spread antisemitism,” the official ADL account stated in a thread. “@Twitch must learn from this situation and improve how they handle antisemitism and hate on their platform, which is a constant and significant challenge,” they said.
It is unclear why Twitch decided to ban a panel that occurred a month ago, and Kotaku has confirmed that the company was aware of the details of the panel’s contents. After announcing new changes and advancements to its ban policies, the company emphasized that the platform was” no place for hateful conduct” during TwitchCon 2024.
Kotaku reached out for comment to the ADL and Twitch, and it will update this story accordingly.
Update: 10/21/2024 at 11: 20 p. m. ET: Updated story with more context regarding Sneako ban.
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