Twitch's hypocrisy: The platform that banned Dr Disrespect needs to first get its house in order

In the past, Twitch has been in the spotlight for some major streamer-related decisions. Recently, the entire community was united against the platform when Leafy got banned. Furthermore, another Twitch decision that still comes under the spotlight is the suspension meted out to Dr DisRespect.

It now appears as if certain other deeply ingrained issues have been at play in the past. Recently, gamesindustry.biz spoke to 16 Twitch employees from different eras of the organization's history, and quite a few problematic aspects came to light.

The platform that banned Dr Disrespect has a lot of 'ism' problem - Twitch's Hypocrisy

We recently talked about the plethora of allegations that had ravaged some Twitch streamers and specific employees. Emmet Shear, the CEO of Twitch, had even posted a lengthy letter that he had sent to all of the company's employees when the news first broke out.

There's been a lot of important conversation happening over the previous couple days, and I've heard your voices. I'd like to share the email I just sent internally to the company on the topic. pic.twitter.com/B1V34lT9EI

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) June 23, 2020

Since then, however, another Twitch employee has come forward with some harrowing allegations against the company. In a scalding account, he said:

"I've been hesitant for years to share my story and the events that happened to me during my employment at Twitch. But with the recent events and their statement on Twitter, I feel compelled to share and speak out against their blatant lies to 'create a safe community."

"Twitch repeatedly swept accounts of harassment and abuse under the rug: sexual, verbal, physical abuse, and racism. And not just my own. It took place in the office. At events. In meetings and behind closed doors. It was rampant and unavoidable. We heard about it in the halls. We saw it at our desks. It was overt and part of the job."

Most of the 16 employees confirmed various aspects of the above, while others said they had never personally been witness to such incidents.

While there are quite a few issues that came to the fore, such as racism, the most common problem that employees talked about was 'misogyny.'

Twitch as an organization is apparently not 'welcoming' to women, and various problematic terms were used in the office for female streamers. This includes 'b**b streamers,' which is highly offensive.

Various other degrading practices and rude comments were also made by men in the office, while some women were even abused.

To make matters worse, the overall attitude of the seniors at Twitch was very problematic, and multiple women accused them of not taking 'responsibility.'

Most women at the organization claimed to have not felt safe, and often found themselves with no one to go to when harmed or threatened.

This paints a rather sorry picture of Twitch as an organization and effectively disproves the CEO's statement made back in June 2020.