Overwatch Streamer Fareeha Andersen Has Ban Period Reduced After Community Outrage
By Zac Cameron ·
While she's still banned for some time, Twitch has significantly reduced the severity of their original punishment after community backlash.
Just days after being handed a month-long ban from Twitch, Overwatch streamer Fareeha Andersen has had her punishment significantly reduced to just four days, meaning she’ll be back on the site on Monday.
The initial trouble started when while streaming a match against a team of South-American players, Andersen stated “It’s alright, we can still beat them, South American players are s***”. Following that stream, Andersen issued a lengthy Twitlonger post to apologize for her statements and to explain herself, yet the ban was still issued in the end.
The greater Overwatch community, however, were less than happy with this outcome, specifically how a regular occurrence like calling a subset of players “s***” could be considered hate speech. If that phrase is thrown around during almost every competitive match in Overwatch, how can one person suffer a ban while others face no consequences.
What a fucking dumb take this is. You can't say players from a region are shit at video games because it's "hate speech?" That's what you're agreeing with. You're also saying anyone with even a modest following must adhere to a very different set of rules to everyone else. Moron.
— Richard Lewis (@RLewisReports) February 15, 2019
Richard Lewis, Director of Talent and Programming at ESP Gaming, responded to several people online who were pleased about the ban, calling into question the possibility of certain players being held to higher standards than others.
Queer woman streamer @FareehaAndersen has been banned on Twitch for 30 days for 'hate speech' for saying South American OW players are shit to her team in a ranked game. Turns out there was a SA discord server harassing/griefing/sniping her. Video+image: https://t.co/eE7UcjdAR1 pic.twitter.com/Bjlxciw5VT
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) February 13, 2019
Esports consultant Rod “Slasher” Breslau also did some investigation into the matter and discovered evidence that suggested a South American Discord group were purposefully trying to harass and grief Andersen during her stream, pointing to a possible campaign of hate speech against the streamer.
Regardless of the reasoning behind their decision, Twitch does seem to have heard the community backlash to this particular decision and reduced the severity of their punishment.