Asmongold calls out Twitch for “unfair” GMHikaru ban for watching Dr Disrespect

Asmongold is accusing Twitch of unfairly banning GMHikaru after the chess streamer was banned for tuning into Dr Disrespect’s YouTube broadcast.

Chess grandmaster Hikaru ‘GMHikaru’ Nakamura was hit with a three-day Twitch ban on March 22 after deciding to tune into Dr Disrespect’s chess match against Dr Lupo.

Dr Disrespect was infamously banned from the platform in June of 2020 – something that prompted the two-time to take Twitch to court. While it’s still unclear why Doc was banned, his lawsuit with the site was resolved in March of 2022 – something that left many streamers confused.

With the court issue behind him, many, including GMHikaru, incorrectly felt like they could interact with Doc’s content on Twitch and after the chess star was banned, Asmongold spoke out in his defense.

Asmongold slams Twitch’s rules regarding Dr Disrespect

In response to Hikaru revealing why he had been banned, Asmongold spoke up and called for more clarity from Twitch.

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“This seems weird considering dozens of streamers (including me) watched both the Ice Posideon NFT scam controversy videos and reacted to Doc’s studio drama regarding NFT’s,” he said, referencing another permanently banned streamer.

As Dexerto reported, Asmongold was very critical of Dr Disrespect’s game studio, Midnight Society, integrating NFTs into the title, but he didn’t suffer any consequences for discussing it on Twitch.

“The rules are clearly not black and white and 3 days for not understanding an unstated nuance seems unfair,” he added.

Twitch viewers debate Hikaru ban

However, as some pointed out, Hikaru was watching Doc play chess during his stream, which is a bit different than simply discussing them or their projects. Twitch community guidelines state: “It is prohibited to use your channel to knowingly feature or advertise a suspended user.”

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That said, others still agreed with the award-winning MMO streamer’s point, and accused the Amazon-owned platform of not being consistent with how it handles creators and bans.

Whether or not this leads to a change in how Twitch enforces this rule remains to be seen, but the incident did make Doc feel bad enough that he decided to send Hikaru a bottle of Black Steel Bourbon.

In any case, this ban should serve as a reminder to streamers that watching Dr Disrespect is prohibited – a sad reality given how popular and influential his content is.