6 ms·

Chess Grandmaster suspended by Twitch for streaming Dr Disrespect playing chess

45 points by nitinreddy88 5y ago

armchairhacker 5y ago
afaik Twitch bans like these are sort of on purpose and for clout. Lots of prominent streamers are getting banned for things like live-streaming movies and TV shows (violating some copyright). These are temporary bans (like 3 days) and the streamers are already so rich and popular they really don’t need to stream anyways. This is actually really good for Hikaru because he gets his name on more news and it makes Twitch look stupid.
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  Indeed. You're pretty spot on with this
- andrewbarba 5y ago
  It's good for us too - we got proper Hikaru game recaps on YouTube.
- RSZC 5y ago
  Disclaimer - used to work at Twitch. The policy may make Twitch look stupid, but it's for a pretty good reason - people would get banned, and then just play multiplayer (with voice or even video chat) with their friends who were also streaming. This effectively allowed them to continue to stream and interact with their audience despite their 'ban.' Agreed that people often get banned on purpose as a way of keeping their name in the news.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    Wouldn't they not get paid still though? Or does the friend just send all donations their way? I can't imagine subbing to someone because they have a person in the lobby who I liked
    - treesprite82 5y ago
      At the extreme: Keemstar has long been banned from Youtube, but remained prominent through DramaAlert which is not technically his channel.
- sph 5y ago
  The fact that the streamer might gain in publicity doesn't justify these ridiculous bans, come on. Are we now saying Twitch is doing them a _favour_?
  - LanceH 5y ago
    There is nothing ridiculous about suspending someone for streaming someone else who is banned. It's about as obvious as it can be that it is content that is explicitly not permitted as it has already been banned.
    - polski-g 5y ago
      It's extremely ridiculous. Does twitch publish a list of everyone they ever banned? Do they have private detectives following the bannees around to keep track of their real name and appearance and online handle? For all time? When the list is 100k entries long, does twitch expect every new entryant to twitch to review it? To hire their own PIs to determine who or what a "DrDisrespect" is? And repeat the process for every entry in the 100k long list?
  - lawl 5y ago
    Yes, because multiple big popular streamers have said that it's a net positive if you can keep the moral high ground, as you will come back and have more viewers than before. Judging from your comment, i believe you think he has the moral high ground. The ban itself doesn't need to be justified to say that he can (and most certainly will) profit from this ban. The next logical step is to think about streamers provoking (short) bans where twitch looks dumb and hacker news discusses them when it normally wouldn't. Was that the case here? No idea. Is it especially unlikely, I don't think so.
ng12 5y ago
I really want to know what Twitch is like from the inside. I cannot think of another creator platform that's so inconsistent and/or spurious with their bans.
- neals 5y ago
  You're in luck! https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/10/twitch-admits-to-major-leak-exposing-source-code-creator-earnings/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/10/twitc...
Ocerge 5y ago
Twitch desperately needs competition. There are seemingly endless examples of completely opaque indefinite bans that can ruin peoples' income. Of course most people won't have sympathy for people who make money playing video games, but at the same time, Twitch's wildly inconsistent policy enforcement wouldn't fly in almost any other situation.
- Beta-7 5y ago
  Twitch has had a few alternatives pop up from time to time (most famous would be Microsoft's Mixer) only for the site to be laughed at by Twitch's users and not given a chance. After a while the new site shuts down because it hasn't picked up momentum. The problem is the viewers not giving the new sites a chance.... only for then complain about twitch having the streaming monopoly.
  - tinco 5y ago
    They laughed at Mixer exactly because it would shut down within a year. Companies like Google and Microsoft don't have enough staying power. Why would users switch to a platform that's going to shutdown within a year anyway? One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. They say it's because it didn't grow fast enough. But the truth is that they just were never serious about it. Everyone could feel it. Mixer was a bluff and it was just not very believable.
    - flutas 5y ago
      >One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. Uhhh...? > The service officially launched on January 5, 2016, as Beam. (...) The service was acquired by Microsoft in August 2016, after which it was renamed Mixer in 2017 and integrated into Microsoft's Xbox division (including top-level integration on Xbox One). (...) Citing an inability to scale its operations, Microsoft announced on June 22, 2020, that Mixer would be shut down by the end of July 22. [0] Sure doesn't sound like one year... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service)
jimmytucson 5y ago
Not just a grandmaster, the #1 blitz player in the world by several measures (FIDE, USCF, chess.com). It's amazing to have as much unfiltered access to a super GM as Hikaru gives. Very entertaining to watch...
- jquery 5y ago
  To be accurate, I think Carlsen beats him pretty consistently, I think Carlsen would have a higher blitz rating if he tried for it. But Hikaru is a lot more entertaining. Hikaru has a great vibe.
Buttons840 5y ago
Was he talking with Dr Disrespect or only streaming his moves?
- incomingpain 5y ago
  Had disrespect's face/stream up on his stream making commentary over top about moves that ought to be played. There is no rule explicitly listed saying you cant do exactly what hikaru did. He has since been unbanned.
flanbiscuit 5y ago
I don't follow anything on Twitch much so I googled why this person got banned and here's the closest thing I could find to an answer. It's an unconfirmed answer but the source is a voice actor from Call of Duty being interviewed on an a YouTube gaming channel (DanAllenGaming) who says he heard it from "people who work at Twitch." https://gamerant.com/call-dutys-ghost-voice-actor-says-dr-disrespect-banned-twitch/ https://gamerant.com/call-dutys-ghost-voice-actor-says-dr-di... > Apparently, Dr Disrespect was using an offer from Mixer as leverage while renegotiating his Twitch contract, something that frustrated the company. With Mixer announcing its shutdown only a week after these discussions began, Twitch found out that Dr. Disrespect was likely lying about the Mixer offers. While there is a possibility that the offer was legitimate, it makes little sense for a dying company to offer a huge new deal to a star. Regardless, the issues were supposedly caused by either a failed attempt at trickery or a risky negotiating tactic, and Twitch cut all ties in response, refusing to deal with Dr Disrespect in any way going forward. And then 2 people on this Quora link say it's for a different reason: https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Dr-Disrespect-banned-from-Twitch https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Dr-Disrespect-banned-from-Twit... > He recently did an IRL stream from inside one of the toilets in E3. Twitch forbids people from streaming illegal acts, and filming people in a public bathroom is likely a violation of California’s “invasion of privacy” law
- amyjess 5y ago
  > He recently did an IRL stream from inside one of the toilets in E3. Twitch forbids people from streaming illegal acts, and filming people in a public bathroom is likely a violation of California’s “invasion of privacy” law On top of that, there were minors in those toilets. That's close enough to child porn that I don't blame Twitch one iota for yeeting him from their platform.
  - causality0 5y ago
    Which would've made sense at the time. But they did ban him for doing that, for two weeks. His permanent ban came a year later.
- jonwachob91 5y ago
neoyagami 5y ago
lets go to trovo, we do not have to put with all this
wjossey 5y ago
Not only did he get suspended, but he was suspended while also competing in the Grand Prix, where he needs to likely make the semi finals to make the candidates tournament. He openly said during interviews since the suspension that he was losing sleep over it and was distracted from the tournament play. So far (as of me writing this) he’s lost one match and drawn two. He likely needs one or two wins to move out of the group stage. It’s not inconceivable, given he won the first leg of the Grand Prix, that the suspension will have played a major role in him not making the candidates tournament. Edit: He’s playing as I write this, if you’re interested in following the match. https://www.chess.com/events/2022-fide-chess-grand-prix-3-pool-a https://www.chess.com/events/2022-fide-chess-grand-prix-3-po...
Gunax 5y ago
So is there a burden on the content creator to maintain a list of known persona non grata, who can never be seen nor heard on the platform? Or is this list published by Twitch somewhere?
haunter 5y ago
*Grandmain ftfy
HstryrsrBttn 5y ago

45 points by nitinreddy88 5y ago

afaik Twitch bans like these are sort of on purpose and for clout. Lots of prominent streamers are getting banned for things like live-streaming movies and TV shows (violating some copyright). These are temporary bans (like 3 days) and the streamers are already so rich and popular they really don’t need to stream anyways. This is actually really good for Hikaru because he gets his name on more news and it makes Twitch look stupid.

0xdeadb00f 5y ago
Indeed. You're pretty spot on with this
andrewbarba 5y ago
It's good for us too - we got proper Hikaru game recaps on YouTube.
RSZC 5y ago
Disclaimer - used to work at Twitch. The policy may make Twitch look stupid, but it's for a pretty good reason - people would get banned, and then just play multiplayer (with voice or even video chat) with their friends who were also streaming. This effectively allowed them to continue to stream and interact with their audience despite their 'ban.' Agreed that people often get banned on purpose as a way of keeping their name in the news.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  Wouldn't they not get paid still though? Or does the friend just send all donations their way? I can't imagine subbing to someone because they have a person in the lobby who I liked
  - treesprite82 5y ago
    At the extreme: Keemstar has long been banned from Youtube, but remained prominent through DramaAlert which is not technically his channel.
sph 5y ago
The fact that the streamer might gain in publicity doesn't justify these ridiculous bans, come on. Are we now saying Twitch is doing them a _favour_?
- LanceH 5y ago
  There is nothing ridiculous about suspending someone for streaming someone else who is banned. It's about as obvious as it can be that it is content that is explicitly not permitted as it has already been banned.
  - polski-g 5y ago
    It's extremely ridiculous. Does twitch publish a list of everyone they ever banned? Do they have private detectives following the bannees around to keep track of their real name and appearance and online handle? For all time? When the list is 100k entries long, does twitch expect every new entryant to twitch to review it? To hire their own PIs to determine who or what a "DrDisrespect" is? And repeat the process for every entry in the 100k long list?
- lawl 5y ago
  Yes, because multiple big popular streamers have said that it's a net positive if you can keep the moral high ground, as you will come back and have more viewers than before. Judging from your comment, i believe you think he has the moral high ground. The ban itself doesn't need to be justified to say that he can (and most certainly will) profit from this ban. The next logical step is to think about streamers provoking (short) bans where twitch looks dumb and hacker news discusses them when it normally wouldn't. Was that the case here? No idea. Is it especially unlikely, I don't think so.

ng12 5y ago

I really want to know what Twitch is like from the inside. I cannot think of another creator platform that's so inconsistent and/or spurious with their bans.

neals 5y ago
You're in luck! https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/10/twitch-admits-to-major-leak-exposing-source-code-creator-earnings/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/10/twitc...

Ocerge 5y ago

Twitch desperately needs competition. There are seemingly endless examples of completely opaque indefinite bans that can ruin peoples' income. Of course most people won't have sympathy for people who make money playing video games, but at the same time, Twitch's wildly inconsistent policy enforcement wouldn't fly in almost any other situation.

Beta-7 5y ago
Twitch has had a few alternatives pop up from time to time (most famous would be Microsoft's Mixer) only for the site to be laughed at by Twitch's users and not given a chance. After a while the new site shuts down because it hasn't picked up momentum. The problem is the viewers not giving the new sites a chance.... only for then complain about twitch having the streaming monopoly.
- tinco 5y ago
  They laughed at Mixer exactly because it would shut down within a year. Companies like Google and Microsoft don't have enough staying power. Why would users switch to a platform that's going to shutdown within a year anyway? One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. They say it's because it didn't grow fast enough. But the truth is that they just were never serious about it. Everyone could feel it. Mixer was a bluff and it was just not very believable.
  - flutas 5y ago
    >One year. Mixer was online for one year and they shut it down. Uhhh...? > The service officially launched on January 5, 2016, as Beam. (...) The service was acquired by Microsoft in August 2016, after which it was renamed Mixer in 2017 and integrated into Microsoft's Xbox division (including top-level integration on Xbox One). (...) Citing an inability to scale its operations, Microsoft announced on June 22, 2020, that Mixer would be shut down by the end of July 22. [0] Sure doesn't sound like one year... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixer_(service)

jimmytucson 5y ago

Not just a grandmaster, the #1 blitz player in the world by several measures (FIDE, USCF, chess.com). It's amazing to have as much unfiltered access to a super GM as Hikaru gives. Very entertaining to watch...

jquery 5y ago
To be accurate, I think Carlsen beats him pretty consistently, I think Carlsen would have a higher blitz rating if he tried for it. But Hikaru is a lot more entertaining. Hikaru has a great vibe.

Buttons840 5y ago

Was he talking with Dr Disrespect or only streaming his moves?

incomingpain 5y ago
Had disrespect's face/stream up on his stream making commentary over top about moves that ought to be played. There is no rule explicitly listed saying you cant do exactly what hikaru did. He has since been unbanned.

flanbiscuit 5y ago

I don't follow anything on Twitch much so I googled why this person got banned and here's the closest thing I could find to an answer. It's an unconfirmed answer but the source is a voice actor from Call of Duty being interviewed on an a YouTube gaming channel (DanAllenGaming) who says he heard it from "people who work at Twitch." https://gamerant.com/call-dutys-ghost-voice-actor-says-dr-disrespect-banned-twitch/ https://gamerant.com/call-dutys-ghost-voice-actor-says-dr-di... > Apparently, Dr Disrespect was using an offer from Mixer as leverage while renegotiating his Twitch contract, something that frustrated the company. With Mixer announcing its shutdown only a week after these discussions began, Twitch found out that Dr. Disrespect was likely lying about the Mixer offers. While there is a possibility that the offer was legitimate, it makes little sense for a dying company to offer a huge new deal to a star. Regardless, the issues were supposedly caused by either a failed attempt at trickery or a risky negotiating tactic, and Twitch cut all ties in response, refusing to deal with Dr Disrespect in any way going forward. And then 2 people on this Quora link say it's for a different reason: https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Dr-Disrespect-banned-from-Twitch https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Dr-Disrespect-banned-from-Twit... > He recently did an IRL stream from inside one of the toilets in E3. Twitch forbids people from streaming illegal acts, and filming people in a public bathroom is likely a violation of California’s “invasion of privacy” law

amyjess 5y ago
> He recently did an IRL stream from inside one of the toilets in E3. Twitch forbids people from streaming illegal acts, and filming people in a public bathroom is likely a violation of California’s “invasion of privacy” law On top of that, there were minors in those toilets. That's close enough to child porn that I don't blame Twitch one iota for yeeting him from their platform.
- causality0 5y ago
  Which would've made sense at the time. But they did ban him for doing that, for two weeks. His permanent ban came a year later.
jonwachob91 5y ago

neoyagami 5y ago

lets go to trovo, we do not have to put with all this

wjossey 5y ago

Not only did he get suspended, but he was suspended while also competing in the Grand Prix, where he needs to likely make the semi finals to make the candidates tournament. He openly said during interviews since the suspension that he was losing sleep over it and was distracted from the tournament play. So far (as of me writing this) he’s lost one match and drawn two. He likely needs one or two wins to move out of the group stage. It’s not inconceivable, given he won the first leg of the Grand Prix, that the suspension will have played a major role in him not making the candidates tournament. Edit: He’s playing as I write this, if you’re interested in following the match. https://www.chess.com/events/2022-fide-chess-grand-prix-3-pool-a https://www.chess.com/events/2022-fide-chess-grand-prix-3-po...

Gunax 5y ago

So is there a burden on the content creator to maintain a list of known persona non grata, who can never be seen nor heard on the platform? Or is this list published by Twitch somewhere?

haunter 5y ago

*Grandmain ftfy

HstryrsrBttn 5y ago