A League of Legends streamer, Pink Ward, has been banned from Twitch after Twitch determined he had used hateful language, but he claims that he only said “yikers” – not the ‘n word’.
Being misheard and suspended by Twitch is nothing particularly new – not for League of Legends streamers. Back on April 22, Team Liquid’s Ashkan ‘TF Blade’ Homayouni was banned for allegedly using a racial slur during one of his League of Legends streams – despite claiming that he had been misheard and only used the word “idiots.”
TF Blade had that suspension lifted, after an outpouring of support, on April 27, yet, a similar incident has once again happened again on Twitch to another LoL streamer.
Up-and-coming broadcaster Pink Ward was locked into a game of LoL on May 17 when he mocked his opponents for allowing him to live with such a small amount of health remaining after darting around a big team fight.
When some members of his chat tried to accuse him of using a racial slur after the fact, the streamer said: “N-word? What? I said ‘yikers’.” Pink Ward re-watched a clip of what happened, cementing his belief that he didn’t, in fact, utter the slur. “Grayson said yikes and I said yikers,” he added.
The streamer noted that he been handed a ban by Twitch, after the fact, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he had done to achieve such a punishment.
After receiving his suspension, he tweeted: “Well guess this is gonna set back getting partnership. Not sure what I did, but will see what I can do,” with the notice of his temporary ban attached.
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Well guess this is gonna set back getting partnership. Not sure what I did, but will see what I can do. pic.twitter.com/L0AEklIMwR
— Pink Ward (@Pinkwardlol) May 17, 2019
Some fans quickly jumped in with tweets of support to Pink Ward, asking if he had been in contact with Twitch about getting the suspension lifted.
Yet, the streamer mentioned that he hadn’t, yet, spoken to anyone at Twitch about what happened and believed it was an automated ban that had misheard what he said.
If this was the reason I was banned for it was just an automated ban I’m sure. I’m not partnered and the way partners are banned are dif from the way non partners are banned. I’m pretty sure there’s one person behind their desk listening to non partners clips to ban them.
— Pink Ward (@Pinkwardlol) May 18, 2019
It remains to be seen if Pink Ward will get unbanned for what happened on-stream, but he has been unable to confirm if he was actually suspended for the clip.
This post will be updated as and when new information become available.