June has been a tumultuous month for MiBR members as they have continuously been embroiled in unnecessary drama. First was Fer, who made racially charged remarks during his personal stream. Although Twitch did not take action, MiBR fined him and he had to publicly apologize on Twitter. Shortly after, MiBR members had another heated argument with their compatriots FURIA over the reset of a crucial round after FalleN and Fer experienced lag, but according to the rules, FURIA was not required to reset since damage had already been dealt. In the end, FURIA agreed to reset the round, but before that, Fer had a controversial tweet with FURIA members.
Just days ago, MiBR members once again became the center of attention when they accused two players from Chaos Esports Club of using hacks in a match against them. With evidence being merely “suspicious” clips, the accusations made by MiBR members on social media stirred up the Brazilian CS:GO community; many fans unleashed insults and even threats against the two players, forcing 16-year-old rising star leaf (one of the accused) to lock his Twitter account. Although FalleN later tweeted to “cool things down” and urged the community to stay calm, this did not prevent the notoriously passionate Brazilian fanbase from continuing to demand “justice” for MiBR and calling for BTS or Valve to intervene and ban the two players.
Last night, Fer was mentioned once again when his Twitch channel was unexpectedly banned by the world’s largest streaming platform. Fer later confirmed on Twitter that his channel had been banned for 7 days and stated that Twitch did not send him any email or notification. However, according to some fans, Fer used the word “mongoloid” during his latest stream on June 29. This seems to be a synonym but at a milder level for the word “retarded”; however, it also carries a racially charged connotation and several other streamers have been banned for using this term. If this is true, then Fer’s ban is entirely understandable as Twitch is known to be extremely strict with streamers who engage in hate speech or racism.
Recently, Twitch has taken strong actions against racism, harassment, and even sexual assault as numerous female streamers have come forward to accuse some Twitch staff and male streamers of inappropriate behavior. Twitch immediately launched investigations, and permanent bans have been issued in the most severe cases. Even prominent politicians have not been exempt; just 2 days ago, the Twitch account of U.S. President Donald Trump was temporarily banned after comments deemed “hateful” during a recent campaign rally.
A 7-day ban is typically applied by Twitch to channels with no or very few prior violations, and it is hoped that this will serve as a valuable lesson for Fer to be more careful with his statements during streams.