‘Quite the apology’: Twitch streamer Dr Disrespect busted for editing out key word in statement on inappropriate texts
Dr Disrespect was one of Twitch’s biggest streamers before a mysterious ban kicked him off the platform back in 2020.
This week he admitted to exchanging inappropriate texts with minors on the platform, which prompted the ban. In his statement, he claimed there were no “real intentions” behind the messages.
But he's now getting dragged for editing out, then adding back in, the word "minor" to his tweet.
The story bubbled up last week after Cody Conners, Twitch’s account director for strategic partnerships, tweeted that Dr Disrespect, whose real name is Herschel Beahm, was banned after he got caught sexting a minor over Twitch’s DM platform.
“He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon. The powers that be could read in plain text,” Conners tweeted. “Case closed, gang.”
A Verge report published on Sunday corroborated Conners’ story by talking with two former Twitch employees who asked to stay anonymous.
One of them, who worked for Twitch’s trust and safety team in 2020 when the ban happened, confirmed that Beahm used Whispers, Twitch’s former DM platform, to “exchange messages with a minor and initiate a conversation about meeting up at TwitchCon,” an annual gaming convention.
Beahm originally denied doing anything wrong in response to Conners' post.
“Seriously... I get it, its a hot topic but this has been settled, no wrongdoing was acknowledged and they paid out the whole contract,” Beahm wrote.
“Listen, I’m obviously tied to legal obligations from the settlement with Twitch but I just need to say what I can say since this is the fucking internet,” Beahm followed up in a tweet the next day. “I didn’t do anything wrong, all this has been probed and settled, nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid.”
But on Monday, Midnight Society, a gaming studio co-founded by Beahm, announced that they’d be ending their relationship with Beahm after speaking “with parties involved.”
Following the Verge article and the Midnight Society statement, Beahm addressed the allegations more directly.
“Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes,” Beahm admitted. “Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more."
He continued: "Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. I went through a lengthy arbitration regarding a civil dispute with Twitch and that case was resolved by a settlement. Let me be clear, it was not a criminal case against me and no criminal charges have ever been brought against me.”
According to the version history of the tweet, Beahm went back and forth on how to refer to the person he was DMing with, first describing them as an “individual minor” before switching to calling them just an “individual,” then reverting to “individual minor” after posters noticed the change and mocked him for it.
“He edited out ‘minor’, got called on it, and then edited it back in. Quite the apology when you're still trying to skirt responsibility,” posted the concept artist Reid Southen.
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