Dr Disrespect’s Twitch ban, explained

Rumble, the video streaming platform that’s become the home for right-wing personalities like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Tim Pool as well as full-throated racists like Nick Fuentes, has a new member joining its ranks: Dr Disrespect. The streamer announced the news via social media and Rumble confirmed it in a press release, stating that the streamer will provide a mix of free and paid content for the platform as well as “acting as an advisor and helping to build the Rumble Gaming community.”

The move to Rumble is the latest development in the Dr Disrespect streaming saga that began four years ago. In 2020, Dr Disrespect, whose real name is Herschel “Guy” Beahm, was banned from Twitch with little explanation mere months after signing a multi-million dollar exclusivity deal. Earlier this year, The Verge and other outlets broke the news that the reason for his ban was due to inappropriate conversations Beahm had with a minor. Beahm denied any wrongdoing stating that there were no “real intentions” behind the messages. He then took a two-month break before returning to stream on YouTube. In response to the allegations, YouTube suspended monetization on his channel and his membership in YouTube’s partner program and denied his appeal to re-monetize his channel late last month.

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Dr Disrespect’s YouTube channel has been demonetized. In a statement to The Verge, YouTube spokesperson Nicole Bell wrote, “We have suspended monetization on DrDisrespect’s channel for violating our Creator Responsibility policy.” Bell also wrote that Dr Disrespect has been suspended from YouTube’s partner program “following serious allegations against the creator.”

The allegations refer to multiple reports that the streamer, whose real name is Guy Beahm, was banned from Twitch in 2020 due to inappropriate messages sent to a minor through Whispers, a Twitch communication app. When Beahm was banned, neither he nor Twitch explained the reason, leaving it a mystery for four years. Late last week, however, Cody Conners, a former Twitch employee, posted on X the alleged reason for Beahm’s ban. “He got banned because got caught sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch whispers product,” Conners wrote. “He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon.”

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Guy Beahm, better known by his streamer persona Dr Disrespect, said he was banned from Twitch four years ago due to private messages he sent to a minor that “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.”

Beahm shared details of the ban in a lengthy post to X, marking the first time he’s directly addressed the reason for his removal.

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Midnight Society, the game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect, has terminated its relationship with the streamer. In a post on X, the studio wrote, “On Friday evening, we became aware of an allegation against one of our co-founder’s Guy Beahm aka Dr Disrespect.”

That is the day and time that former Twitch employee Cody Conners posted a tweet about the alleged reason for Beahm’s permanent ban, saying it was for “sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch whispers product.” Robert Bowling, a former Infinity Ward developer and fellow Midnight Society co-founder, posted shortly after, saying, “I’m now aware and I’m dealing with it... I landed from Stockholm, reconnected, saw the tweet and immediately began an investigation to learn everything I need to know so I can ensure a full follow through.”

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Twitch abruptly banned one of its biggest stars — Herschel “Guy” Beahm, better known by his persona Dr Disrespect — in 2020 without a word of explanation. Now, four years after Beahm’s permanent ban, two former Twitch employees have come forward to describe events they say contributed to his removal from the platform.

One former Twitch employee, who asked to remain anonymous citing the potential risk to their career, told The Verge that Beahm had used Whispers, Twitch’s now-defunct messaging system, to exchange messages with a minor and initiate a conversation about meeting up at TwitchCon. The employee worked on Twitch’s trust and safety team at the time of the ban in 2020.

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Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm has returned to streaming, this time on YouTube. His first stream goes live tomorrow at 3pm EDT. The controversial streamer was permanently banned from Twitch in late June, for reasons that are still unknown.

Though he’d signed an exclusive deal with Twitch back in March, Beahm does not have a similar arrangement with YouTube. Sources close to Beahm say that he plans to experiment with other platforms like Facebook Gaming and his own personal website, the Champions Club.

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Dr Disrespect has spoken up for the first time in over two weeks in conversations with multiple news outlets, but the streamer declined to comment on why he might have been banned from Twitch and provided only vague details about what might come next.

The streamer, real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm, told The Washington Post that he wasn’t interested in “engaging crazy speculation” about the reasons behind his apparent ban. He’s “considering” a lawsuit against Twitch, according to PC Gamer, and he’s starting to figure out what the Doc’s return will look like. He also said he took a short vacation to the beach. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety,” Beahm said.

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Dr Disrespect disappeared from Twitch this afternoon, with his account vanishing from the site, leading to rumors that he had been banned. The disappearance comes two days after Twitch said it would begin issuing permanent suspensions for streamers as it cracked down on accusations of harassment and sexual misconduct.

Twitch would not confirm that it had banned Dr Disrespect, why he might have been banned, or whether he might be permanently banned. Twitch signed Dr Disrespect to an exclusive two year contract back in March for an undisclosed but “life-changing” amount of money. The streamer had also made a deal with a production company to create an animated TV series around his character.

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When streamer Samantha Wong told Twitch that she had been sexually harassed by another person connected to the Twitch community, the report went all the way to the top. A Twitch VP who has since left the company, Justin Wong, says he escalated her allegations to Twitch’s CEO, the head of Twitch HR, and a VP who managed Twitch’s relationship with the accused person. “All assured me it would be handled,” he wrote on Twitter.

But a year later, the accused person was still being featured by Twitch. According to Samantha Wong, who streams under the name Sampai, the person she’d reported for harassment was not only still allowed to attend Twitch events, but he was even given the opportunity to appear on segments on Twitch’s official channel. “You, as a company, minimized and dismissed my sexual harassment,” she wrote on Twitter.

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