DJ and music producer deadmau5 has reportedly had his Twitch channel banned for hate speech following the use of a homophobic slur he said while streaming PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Subsequently, deadmau5 deleted his Twitch channel while claiming that Twitch has double standards and is censoring him. Twitch does not offer official comments on individual account bans, and deadmau5 has not revealed the specific details regarding his ban beyond confirmation and the reason for it.

deadmau5, whose real name is Joel Zimmerman, had just been killed in a match of PUBG. Believing his killer to be a stream sniper, Zimmerman spoke aloud, “Is that some f****** c********* stream sniper f**.” Twitch has a strict policy regarding hate speech and reportedly issued the ban relatively quickly, with Zimmerman himself later confirming the ban in his response.

Zimmerman has a history of slurs and denigration on social media. In late 2018 he made several transphobic remarks while insulting someone replying to him on Twitter, followed by a series of offensive remarks insulting musician Slushii’s work days later. He’s since handed over control of his Twitter account to his team.

Following the ban, Zimmerman shut down his Twitch account, stating that he’ll no longer work with Twitch in the future despite past business partnerships. He doesn’t acknowledge that his words were homophobic or hateful and describes his actions as, “Intended to insult a f*****’ a***** who was being a f****** a*****,” in the deadmau5 subreddit. As such, he dismisses the need to apologize:

As many other Twitch and Youtube personalities have done in recent years, Zimmerman attributes his words to a frustrated “heat of the moment”  reaction rather than an intent to say something hateful. And while he admits his words were “toxic,” he says that since he doesn’t personally believe he espouses feelings of hate that Twitch is, in effect, “censoring and suspending me for harmless s***.”

“I know who I am, and I don’t have to f****** sit here and cry and defend my f****** self with the obligatory ‘I’M NOT THAT PERSON, I AM SORRY’ reflex.”

It’s unclear if deadmau5 intends to continue streaming video games online on a different platform than Twitch. For the time being, he says he plans to focus on his ongoing performance rehearsals.

Source: Kotaku