Who is Destiny?

• Destiny started his career on Twitch in 2011, when he left a job as a carpet cleaner to play StarCraft 2 on Twitch. Even then, he was known for his rude and gruff nature. He never avoided confrontation.
• Starting in 2016, Destiny turned more and more into a streamer on Twitch, dealing with political and social issues. In 2020, he was stripped of his partnership on Twitch when he said he would welcome “rednecks mowing down idiot protesters because they think they can torch buildings.” That was construed as him “calling for violence.”
• Destiny has about 650,000 followers on Twitch and last streamed to about 2,850 viewers. Now he’s been permanently banned, as he shares.

“Hateful appearance”

What was Destiny banned for? Destiny says he got a message from Twitch saying he was banned for “hateful behavior.” He says the ban is permanent. But he does not know the exact reason (via youtube).

He sees his statement that transgender women should not compete against CIS women in sports as a plausible possibility for his permanent expulsion.

In the lead-up, people on reddit had discussed Destiny may have been banned for broadcasting a conversation with an alt-right speaker banned on Twitch.

It is illegal on Twitch to promote people who are banned on Twitch. For such a violation, GMHikaru had also been banned for 3 days. But this behavior would probably not have been punished with a permanent ban.

Twitch enacts rule to better protect minorities

What kind of rule is this? Twitch had introduced a new policy against “hateful behavior and harassment” on December 9, 2020 to “better protect the community.” The rule was meant to protect members of the LGBTQIA+ and BiPoC community in particular. Those would be disproportionately targeted. That was not acceptable, Twitch said.

On “hateful behavior” it says about specifically among the things that are banned (via twitch):

Calls to subjugate, separate, or exclude people, including political, economic, and social exclusion/segregation based on protected characteristics, including age. However, we do allow discussion of certain topics such as immigration policy, voting rights for non-citizens, and participation in professional sports, as long as the content is not directly based on denigrating a protected characteristic.

Streamer continues on YouTube

Where do we go from here? Destiny will probably just continue on YouTube – just like other streamers who have been banned from Twitch.

The only way he can take place on Twitch again is if Twitch grants an appeal of the ban.

But it could well be that Twitch has made a conscious decision to dispense with the streamer’s controversial views in the future. The seems to be balancing right on those hair-thin boundaries that the team has enacted about what you’re allowed to talk about on Twitch and what you have to keep quiet about. Maybe he did that once too often and lost his balance.