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Just days after Twitch told her she wouldn’t be able to stream for a month, Fareeha Anderson’s ban has been reduced to just four days.
Following a stream in which Fareeha called South American Overwatch players “shit,” Twitch handed her a 30-day suspension, citing her insults as “hate speech.”
Fareeha put out a TwitLonger post issuing a lengthy apology, but the ban still came in. Following her post showing the email Twitch sent her, several people in the community spoke out against this decision.
Specifically, people were up in arms about how such a common occurrence like calling a subset of players “shit” at a game could now be considered hate speech. If a phrase that gets thrown around in nearly every competitive game is now hate speech, where does that line truly begin?
Richard Lewis, the director of talent and programming at ESP Gaming, responded to several people who said this was a good thing. He said that if this is the direction things are going, every person with a decent sized following will need to follow a different set of rules.
Not only did people like Lewis speak out, but esports consultant Rod Breslau also compiled evidence that a South American Discord server was purposefully trying to harass and grief her during the stream. This, along with a large amount of outcry against this ban, must have reached someone at Twitch.
On Feb. 14, Fareeha announced that she’d see her followers live in four days, meaning Twitch cut down her ban from the initial 30-day suspension.
Although the length of her ban was reduced, it’s unclear if a strike against her channel or any other secondary issues will also be resolved.
