Popular League of Legends streamer Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni has been briefly banned from Twitch after it was thought that he used a racial slur during a recent stream.
The Team Liquid streamer was thought to have used the “n-word” while playing a recent game of League of Legends. In reality, TF Blade used the word “idiots” which when said quickly and combined with the streamer’s accent was seemingly mistaken for the slur.
Here’s the footage from the stream in question:
Originally banned from Twitch for 30 days, the platform has since reduced the ban to only 7 days after an appeal. TF Blade shared an email he received directly from Twitch on Twitter that stated that the appeals team at the company heard him say nothing but the “n-word” even when purposefully listening for the word “idiots.” I’ve watched the clip from the stream myself dozens of times at this point and I’m still not really sure how anything other than “idiots” can be heard.
TF Blade is rightfully mad about the whole situation and says it will only damage his reputation moving forward. “They are literally going to just ruin my reputation on a mistake that is on their side, this is truly unfair. All the sponsors will look at this without the full context and take the wrong point,” Blade said in a tweet from today. “I am seriously frustrated with this.”
Others from the League of Legends community as a whole have also started to stand up for TF Blade and have expressed frustration with Twitch over the matter. Team Liquid owner Steve Arhancet said earlier today that he has reached out to Twitch and has asked that they not only remove the ban but apologize for this entire situation.
I’ve listened to the clip with TFBlade over 20 times now, it’s clear to me he’s saying idiots. We are reaching out to twitch to remove the ban and seek an apology for the misunderstanding. If this happens, we hope TFBlade accepts and we all move on.
— Steve Arhancet (@LiQuiD112) April 24, 2019
Former Riot Games commentator Aidan “Zirene” Moon has also added his voice to the conversation on Twitter referring to the entire matter as “awful” and adding that “They are directly calling him a liar.” Team Vitality head coach YamatoCannon also chimed in saying that he hopes TF Blade tries to sue for what has happened.
In a time where they have been more than enough “heated gaming moments” caught on stream from various personalities, I understand why Twitch would have such a strict rule against slurs and their usage. It’s a zero-tolerance policy that I respect.
At the same time, it’s ridiculous to see the platform not take back this ban in a situation where they have clearly been wrong. The longer this ban continues to stick, the louder the conversation surrounding it continues to get and the worse Twitch continues to look for the whole matter.
We’ll see if Twitch ends up removing this ban soon or if they’ll double-down on the decision here in the future.
The post League of Legends Streamer TF Blade Has Been Banned from Twitch for Using a Slur He Claims Never Uttered by Logan Moore appeared first on DualShockers.