Much can be said about popular streamer Asmongold, but he’s never been one to shy away from speaking his mind. Recently, he went to bat for political streamer Destiny, railing against the Twitch moderation policies that resulted in Destiny’s ban from the platform.
In a stream this week, Asmongold took a break from World of Warcraft to react to Destiny’s appearance on the Iced Coffee Hour podcast, where the YouTube streamer explained his own thoughts on his ban and the underlying reasons.
Destiny’s 2022 ban was one of the most high-profile suspensions in the platform’s history at the time, with the only cited reason by Twitch being “hateful conduct.” Even today, Destiny is a political creator that touches on controversial topics, so one can only guess what exactly pushed Twitch’s moderation team to finally pull the trigger. The consensus today is it was likely due to Destiny hosting open white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his stream, while Destiny has today explained on the podcast he thinks it’s because he’s called transgender detractors like fellow streamer Keffals “subhuman.”
Whatever the true reason is, it’s known only to Twitch streaming staffers . That didn’t stop Asmongold from chiming in, however, quickly taking aim at the apparent double standard in Twitch’s modern moderation policies. He cited examples of other streamers being able to stay on the platform despite blatantly breaking the rules of the site—for instance, political streamer Denims, who put a $30,000 bounty on Asmongold.
Naturally, his hypothesis was Twitch’s bans are politically motivated, with those not falling in line with the platform’s views being booted. Ultimately, he seems to believe everyone should be allowed on Twitch regardless of politics or the extremity of those politics, calling for “free speech” on the platform. Asmongold himself has gradually become a fairly notorious right-wing figure, often speaking against the “wokeness” apparently present in today’s gaming industry, but remains on Twitch for reasons just as murky as those behind Destiny’s ban.
It seems some of his demands may eventually come to fruition, if the larger Internet’s recent shift toward “free speech absolutism” is any indication. Fuentes was recently reinstated on X (formerly Twitter), after all, where he can share rhetoric without repercussion. It’s not impossible that Twitch could implement a similar policy shift, perhaps even in an effort to entice some of the streamers it’s been losing to its rivals like Kick and Rumble. Soon enough, we could see people like Nick Fuentes occupying the very same space as Twitch streamers putting five-figure bounties on their internet rivals’ heads. Wouldn’t that be nice?
