Twitch streamer and famous YouTuber Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt 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. “Come to think of it, I was way too much of an asshole about the history of Palestine. » His other Twitch channel, Asmongoldstay standing.

Besides playing gamesHoyt frequently livestreams extended chat sessions in which he comments on other people’s YouTube videos or whatever topic is gaining traction on his dedicated subreddit. In the middle of a recent live stream, he began talking about Israel’s war on Gaza, which Gaza’s health ministry says has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since the start a little over a year ago, after the Hamas attack on October 7.

“If you want to think of genocide as the systematic killing of a group of people, genocide is enshrined in Sharia law right now, so no, I’m not going to cry a fucking river when people who have genocide enshrined in their laws are getting caught,” Hoyt said at the time. part of the flow that has been cut and shared on social networks (the original VOD does not appear to be online). “I don’t care. They are terrible people. It’s not even a question. It’s crazy that people don’t see it that way. They would do 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 that Western values ​​and it is an inferior culture in every way. ways.

The comments were immediately condemned by various Twitch users, streamers and others. Many have pointed out the terms of service and community guidelines of the Amazon-owned platform which prohibit speech that reinforces negative stereotypes or attempts to dehumanize protected groups. Some tagged Twitch call for Hoyt to be banned which the platform has now done for its zackrawrr channel which has 1.9 million followers.

Left-leaning streamer Hasan “Hasanabi” Pikerwho was a staunch defender for Palestinian rights for years, invited Hoyt to his own channel to refute his comments and push back against racist rhetoric. Hoyt later walked back his initial remarks, but stopped short of saying he was wrong.

“Come to think of it, I was way too much of an asshole about the history of Palestine. » he posted on. “My bad. Of course, no one deserves to have their life destroyed, even if they do things or have opinions that I find regressive. You deserve more than me by saying stupid things like that, I’ll do better.

Some of her fans immediately criticized the about-face, calling her giving in to the backlash, while others said it didn’t go far enough. “This is coming from a fan who has been watching frequently for over a decade,” one person wrote. “It wasn’t just an ‘oh shit, this is bad’ situation. You need to apologize properly. To say that an entire culture and ethnicity is “inferior” is literally Nazism and racism. It’s disgusting.”

Twitch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.