Twitch streamer Zack Hoyt, better known as Asmongold, had one of his accounts banned following a racist tirade against Palestinians during a recent livestream. During the stream, Asmongold said he doesn't care about the ongoing loss of life in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military, which the United Nations says currently stands at more 42,000 killed, most of whom were women and children, because "they're terrible people" who come from "an inferior culture."
"If you want to consider it genocide as a systematic killing of a group of people, they have genocide built into Sharia law right now," Asmongold said during the stream, which was clipped and shared widely on social media. "So no, I'm not going to cry a f—ing river when people who have genocide that's baked into their laws are getting genocided. I don't give a f—. They're terrible people. It's not even a question. It's crazy that people don't see it that way. They'd be doing the same thing.
"These people are not your allies. They're not the same as us. They come from an inferior culture that is horrible. It kills people for their identity, and it is directly antithetical to everything Western values stand for, and it is an inferior culture in all ways. It is that simple. No, I don't feel bad for them, I don't feel sorry for them, I don't care."
The full clip is way worse btw pic.twitter.com/7CpjmdAKFEOctober 14, 2024
Hoyt's speech clearly violates several of Twitch's community guidelines:
- Twitch "does not permit behavior that is motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance, including behavior that promotes or encourages discrimination…"
- Users cannot "Create content that expresses inferiority based on a protected characteristic, for example, statements related to physical, mental, and moral deficiencies.
- Users cannot "Encourage or support the political or economic dominance of any race, ethnicity, or religious group, including support for white supremacist/nationalist ideologies. This does not include support for self-determination movements."
- Users cannot make "Statements that a protected group should not exist"; "Statements that a protected characteristic is repulsive"
- Users cannot "Call for subjugation, segregation or exclusion, including political, economic, and social exclusion/segregation, based on a protected characteristic, including age."
Following an influx of criticism over his racist commentary and calls for Twitch to ban his account, Asmongold posted an apology on X.
"Looking back on it, I was way too much of an asshole about the Palestine thing," he wrote. "My bad. Of course no one deserves to have their life destroyed even if they do things or have views I find regressive. You guys deserve more than me saying stupid shit like that, I'll do better."
That did little to calm the upset: It turns out that quite a few people don't consider "my bad" a sufficient expression of contrition and reconsideration for espousing grossly racist attitudes about an "inferior" and "terrible" culture.
The ban was applied to Asmongold's "zackrawrr" channel, which was at one point a secondary channel he used for "chill" gaming streams; his nominal main Asmongold channel remains in place. He hasn't streamed on that channel for the better part of a year, though, and he won't be able to return to it now that his de facto primary channel is banned: Twitch's rules state that "any attempt to circumvent an account suspension or chat ban by using other accounts or identities will also result in an additional enforcement against your accounts, up to an indefinite suspension."
