Dr Disrespect continued to send sexually explicit messages to minor after their age was known, former Twitch employee says
"There was no confusion."
More information has come to light regarding Twitch's 2020 ban of streamer Guy "Dr Disrespect" Beahm.
Beahm began making headlines again last week, when Twitch's former account director of strategic partnerships Cody Conners stated an unnamed person had been banned from the streaming platform after they were caught sending sexually explicit messages to a minor. Subsequent reports confirmed the person Conners was referring to was indeed Beahm, something many had already suspected.
Now, a former Twitch employee - who has chosen to remain anonymous - has told Rolling Stone that the minor had informed Beahm that they were underage, and Beahm continued to send "sexually graphic" messages to them regardless.
"I recall that Dr Disrespect was made aware by the individual that they were underage during the conversation, after which he indicated that this was no problem and continued on," the former employee told the publication, stating "there was no confusion".
"Messages sent after this was acknowledged were no less graphic and in sexually explicit nature than before, and I think more than the categorisation of 'leaning too much in the direction of being inappropriate' might indicate," they continued.
Later in the conversation, the former employee spoke further about Twitch's decision to ban Dr Disrespect. "After viewing the contents of the Whisper conversation, it quickly became clear the egregiousness of conduct and what actions Twitch must take," they said. "The decision to permanently terminate Beahm was relatively quick, due to the severity of the behaviour."
They also added that following a number of sexual misconduct allegations that arose in 2020, Twitch created an incident response team codenamed Gold Sparrow to address concerns. "We wanted to be able to process mounting investigations quicker and with more resources while providing as much support for the victims as possible," they said.
In the time since Conner's initial post last week (which Rolling Stone's source said "got the ball rolling" for others to come forward with information), Beahm has been dropped from Midnight Society, the game development studio he co-founded in 2021. Other partnerships have also ousted the streamer, including Turtle Beach, NBA 2K24, and the San Francisco 49ers.
YouTube, meanwhile, has suspended monetisation on Beahm's channel. Today's report noted Beahm was not offered a contract at YouTube due to the circumstances of his Twitch ban.
Earlier this week, Beahm released a statement on social media platform X, admitting to sending messages to a minor which he tried to pass off as "casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate".