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Dr Disrespect says he knows why Twitch banned him, and he's suing
The popular, but controversial, streamer says he now knows why he was banned from the platform.
Dr Disrespect, a popular video game streamer, is suing Twitch more than a year after being unceremoniously banned from the platform.
The streamer, who’s real name is Guy Beahm, is a controversial figure for the shtick he uses as a WWE villain. Normally in wrestling, everyone is in on the joke, but it’s not been the case when Beahm uses the persona. Perhaps most notably, the 39-year-old was first banned by Twitch in 2019 after streamed inside a bathroom at the E3 gaming exposition. He also generally trash talks people a lot, in games and in real life.
Mysterious ban — The second, and permanent, ban of Beahm occurred in June 2020, and at the time he claimed that he had no idea why he had been banned. Twitch never offered an explanation — publicly or to Beahm, apparently — and surprisingly it’s never leaked out. Beahm says that he finally has some answers, however.
Beahm has since moved over to YouTube for his streams, and yesterday discussed the Twitch ban. “I’ve known for months now, the reason why,” Beahm said during the stream. “And I’ll just say this right now, champs. There’s a reason why we’re suing the fuck out of them. I don’t know how else to put it.” Beahm did not specify the reasoning for the ban during the stream.
Tiny violin — Even though Beahm has amassed nearly 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube, he says the earnings are “a quarter” of what he was making streaming on Twitch. Beahm had an exclusive streaming contract with Twitch reportedly worth millions of dollars per year.
It’s hard to imagine that Beahm has much standing to overturn a ban on Twitch, unless its reasoning contradicts the terms of his contract. And even though nobody likes to see the big tech platforms wield so much power over individuals, an outcome where Beahm wins doesn’t seem so great either. He’s a generally distasteful person, and the Twitch community is healthier without him. In any case, he seems to be doing just fine on YouTube, even if he’s lost some money from exclusive deals — but that’s the free market for you.
Twitch has said going forward it will improve its ban notifications sent to users by offering the date of a violation and the details of the offending content.
