After more than eleven successful years, one of the most well-known Twitch streamers has now been permanently blocked. Destinywhose real name is Steven Bonnell II, mostly entertained his approximately 700,000 followers with discussions and opinions on politically explosive topics – which were now apparently fatal to his Twitch career.
Who is Destiny anyway?
The American has been streaming regularly on Twitch and its predecessor Justin.tv for 11 years. He started his career as a Starcraft 2 player, but from 2016 he made a name for himself as the first major politics streamer. Its content included political debates with fellow streamers or internet personalities.
Over the years he has referred to himself as very big social democrat
, Hardcore-Kapitalist
, classic liberal
, rule utilitarian
and agnostischer Atheist
. He also stressed that he prefers based on empirical data than with moral conviction
argued.
Through his combative and aggressive style of discussion he was often called in various media effective opposition to right-wing political YouTubers
appreciated.
His 2017 chat with popular YouTuber Jontron garnered a lot of attention. The comedian made some controversial statements about race, crime and immigration that tarnished his reputation for the long term and forced him to take an extended hiatus:
link to YouTube content
Nevertheless, there has already been some controversy surrounding Destiny. Here’s what he said in 2020 about the riots caused by the death of George Floyd:
The riots must finally stop. And if that means white redneck militias out there mowing down the stupid protesters who think they can burn down buildings at 10pm, then they have my goddam blessing at that point…
Destiny justified this statement by saying that his frustration was only for the rioters. These, he believed, could lure people back into voting for Donald Trump again in the American presidential election.
Destiny banned from Twitch – what’s behind it?
So far, there is no official reason for his permanent ban from the streaming platform. In such cases, as in the case of DrDisrespect, Twitch only expresses itself cryptically. as official reason will here hateful behavior
called.
Twitch
DrDisrespect surprisingly and apparently permanently banned
According to the Twitch Terms of Service, hateful behavior is defined as follows:
Hateful conduct is any content or activity that promotes or encourages discrimination, disparagement, harassment, or violence based on any of the following protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, color, caste, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious illness and veteran status.
There are currently two possible reasons:
#1: Opinion on trans athletes
Destiny itself suspects that a statement about the transsexual swimmer Lia Thomas could be the reason. Her victory in a competition in which she even beat Emma Weyant (silver medal at the 2020 Olympic Games) is currently dividing the USA. Destinys is of the opinion that Trans women and cis women should not compete in the same competitions
.
link to Reddit content
#2: Discussion with a right-wing nationalist
In the course of its political debates, Destiny converses with people of all political persuasions. In early March, he had a discussion with far-right streamer Nicholas Fuentes, who was banned from Twitch, Twitter, YouTube and most other social media platforms for posting racist, misogynist and anti-LBTQIA content.
The fact that he offered him a platform on his Twitch channel could be a possible reason for the ban – after all, he recently became a chess grandmaster himself Hikaru Nakamura banned for three daysfor watching a stream where the persona non grata DrDisrespect is playing chess.
There will most likely never be a detailed explanation from Twitch. Destiny will henceforth publish its content on YouTube, where it streamed for six hours yesterday.
No comment function?
Due to the expected high moderation effort, we have moved the comments to the forum. You can comment there as usual.
Here is the forum thread
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