Popular streamer Zach Hoyt, better known as Asmongold, has been suspended from Twitch after saying in a video Palestinians come from an “inferior culture”.
Asmongold, who has over five million followers over two Twitch channels, has apologised in a post on X, writing “I’ll do better”.
The account on which he made the remarks has been replaced with a message stating it is “temporarily unavailable” for violating community guidelines.
Twitch and representatives for Asmongold have been contacted for comment.
In clips widely circulated online, Asmongold made comments suggesting he was not sympathetic to Palestinians who had been killed in the Israel-Gaza war.
On Monday, the UN condemned the “large number of civilian casualties” caused by Israeli strikes on northern Gaza.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war since 7 October 2023, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Asmongold later posted on X saying “my bad”.
“Of course no one deserves to have their life destroyed even if they do things or have views I find regressive,” he wrote.
“I don’t mind apologising if it’s something I think I’m actually wrong about.”
Twitch’s community guidelines state the streaming platform does not allow behaviour “that promotes or encourages discrimination”.
It also bars streamers from making content which “expresses inferiority based on a protected characteristic”.
Asmongold has faced a backlash from his fellow Twitch streamers, with BrookeAB, who has 1.3m followers on the platform, calling his comments “straight up racism”.
And Hasan Piker, who streams as HasanAbi, spoke to Asmongold on a stream before the ban – but he did not back down from his original comments.
In the same conversation, he said he did not support Israel.
Asmongold was streaming on his Zachrawrr channel, where he often talks about news stories or trending topics, and has 1.9 million followers.
His other channel has 3.5 million followers but is used far less often.
However, Twitch community guidelines do not allow suspended users to use their other accounts while they are banned.
Asmongold has not commented on the suspension.
This article was originally published at www.bbc.com
