Deadmau5 Banned from Twitch Following Homophobic Comments

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Feb 13, 2019

Not unlike some other high-profile music-makers, deadmau5 occasionally takes to video streaming service Twitch to let listeners get a look at his gaming skills. Now, the producer has found himself temporarily banned from the platform after using a homophobic slur.

As Kotaku points out, the producer and DJ born Joel Zimmerman got the boot after streaming gameplay of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds earlier this week, referring to another player as a "fucking cock-sucking stream sniper f**."

For the uninitiated, "stream sniping" involves players finding and exploiting streaming players' location on the game map by watching their stream on a second screen or device.

After being hit with the ban, deadmau5 deleted his Twitch channel entirely, and explained his choice of words in a now-deleted comment on Reddit. You can find it archived below.

"While it was intended to insult a fuckin asshat who was being a fucking asshat ... it wasn't 'directed at an entire group of people who have a sexual orientation that differs from my own'," he wrote. "I know who I am, and I don't have to fucking sit here and cry and defend my fucking self with the obligatory 'I'M NOT THAT PERSON, I AM SORRY' reflex."

He added, "Of course there's a huge line between being tilted as fuck over a video game and saying some shit vs. mobilising a fucking belief standard with what ACTUALLY is hate speech."

Of course, it isn't the first time deadmau5 has been called out for his disparaging comments online. Last October, he apologized for making transphobic comments in a Twitter exchange.
 
Deadmau5 says he will longer partner with or stream on Twitch due to the platform's double standards on censorship and suspensions after receiving a ban

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