Twitch streamer and famous YouTuber Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt has had his zackrawrr account banned after a racist rant about Muslims and Palestinians killed in Gaza went viral on social media. “My bad,” he shared on X (formerly Twitter) following an online backlash. “Looking back on it, I was way too much of an asshole about the Palestine thing.” His other Twitch channel, Asmongold, remains up.
In addition to playing games, Hoyt frequently livestreams extended chat sessions where he comments on other people’s YouTube videos or whatever topics are gaining traction on his dedicated subreddit. In the midst of a recent livestream, he began talking about Israel’s war on Gaza, which the Gaza Health Ministry says has killed over 40,000 Palestinians since it began just over a year ago following the October 7 attack by Hamas.
“If you want to consider a genocide as a systematic killing of a group of people they have genocide built into Sharia law right now so no I’m not going to cry a fucking river when people who have genocide that’s baked into their laws are getting genocided,” Hoyt said during a portion of the stream that was clipped and shared on social media (the original VOD doesn’t appear to be online). “I don’t give a fuck. They’re terrible people. It’s not even a question. It’s crazy people don’t see it that way. They’d be doing the same thing.”
He continued:
These people are not your allies they are not the same as us, they come from an inferior culture that is horrible, it kills people for their identity, and it is directly antithetical to everything Western values stand for and it is an inferior culture in all ways.
The comments were immediately condemned by various Twitch users, streamers, and others. Many pointed to the Amazon-owned platform’s Terms of Service and community guidelines which prohibit speech that reinforces negative stereotypes about or tries to dehumanize protected groups. Some tagged Twitch calling for Hoyt to be banned which the platform has now done for his 1.9 million follower zackrawrr channel.
Leftist streamer Hasan “Hasanabi” Piker, who’s been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights for years, invited Hoyt onto his own channel to rebut his comments and push back on the racist rhetoric. Hoyt later backed off his original remarks, but stopped short of saying he was wrong.
“Looking back on it, I was way too much of an asshole about the Palestine thing,” he posted on X. “My bad Of course no one deserves to have their life destroyed even if they do things or have views I find regressive. You guys deserve more than me saying stupid shit like that, I’ll do better.”
Some of his fans immediately criticized the about-face as caving to the backlash, while others said it didn’t go nearly far enough. “This is coming from a fan who’s been frequently watching for over a decade,” wrote one person. “This wasn’t just an ‘oh shit my bad’ situation. You gotta apologize properly. Saying an entire culture and ethnicity is “inferior” is literally Nazism & racism. its disgusting.”
Twitch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update 10/15/2024 3:36 p.m. ET: Rod “Slasher” Breslau reports that Hoyt’s Twitch ban will last for 14 days.