After community backlash and an open letter from Team Liquid CEO Steve “LiQuiD112” Arhancet, it looks like Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni’s ban on Twitch has officially been lifted.
While TF Blade was banned just a few days ago, it has felt like a long battle between TF Blade and Twitch, who decided to ban the popular League of Legends streamer for allegedly using a racial slur during one of his streams. TF refuted the allegation, showing in a clip that he did not say anything of the sort, and actually said the word “idiots.”
TF was originally banned for 30 days by Twitch, but he appealed the ban. Instead of lifting the ban, though, Twitch controversially reduced it to seven days. The reasoning from Twitch staff was unusual, and many people in the streaming community thought it was Twitch admins refusing to own up to their mistake.
“Twitch takes hateful conduct extremely seriously,” a member of Twitch staff said in an email to TF Blade. “I believe you when you say you weren’t being hateful, but it’s really hard to argue with the fact that several people on the Partner Conduct team all heard the N word in an objective review of your clip.”
TF Blade’s stream, thanks to the power of the Twitch and League of Legends communities, is back. Hopefully, this incident can prevent any similar incidents from happening in the future.
