Dr Disrespect Banned From Twitch And E3 For Streaming In Public Restrooms
Popular Twitch streamer Guy Beahm, also known as Dr Disrespect, had his Twitch channel suspended after streaming from public bathrooms at E3 several times throughout the show last week. According to Kotaku, the Entertainment Software Association, the company behind the annual conference, also revoked Dr Disrespect's E3 badge.
Based on reports and videos, Disrespect entered public restrooms at E3 with his camera person in tow. The broadcaster live-streamed his experience while attendees, including, at one point, what looked like a minor, used the urinals in the background. Other clips show Disrespect re-entering the restroom on at least two more occasions and using the urinal. Images since posted to Twitter show the streamer using a urinal with his camera person stationed behind him.
Not long after the streams, clips, and images started to circulate, Dr Disrespect's account disappeared from Twitch. "Doc's channel got banned," tweeted Jessica Blevins, the wife and manager of Tyler "Ninja" Blevins. "Obviously saw that coming."
By taking a camera into a bathroom, Disrespect violated California's "invasion of privacy" law, which prohibits "[use of] a concealed camcorder, motion picture camera, or photographic camera of any type, to secretly videotape, film, photograph, or record by electronic means, another identifiable person who may be in a state of full or partial undress, for the purpose of viewing the body of, or the undergarments worn by, that other person, without the consent or knowledge of that other person, in the interior of a bedroom, bathroom, changing room, fitting room, dressing room, or tanning booth, or the interior of any other area in which that other person has a reasonable expectation of privacy."
This went against Twitch's terms of service, which prohibits the streaming of illegal acts. Recording someone against their will also breaks Twitch's anti-harassment policy. "Violating our policy against harassment will result in your account being suspended. Depending on the severity of the offense, harassers may be indefinitely suspended on the first violation."
Dr Disrespect's Twitch account remains suspended, with no word on how long the ban will stay in effect. Though he did not provide an immediate response to the incident, the streamer broke his radio silence last Thursday on Twitter. The tweet includes a 26 second clip of Disrespect walking around E3 with the caption "Mishaps lead to recaps" followed by promises of a full E3 recap video. According to the tweet, Doc also fired his director "Alex," likely the same elusive figure he often yells at off-screen and occasionally "fires" during his streams.
The promised recap went live on YouTube over the weekend. Clocking in at almost 11 minutes, the video shows Doc and his bodyguard, Dan, walking around the conference, chatting with fans and devs, and yelling a lot. He also spends some time promoting his sponsor, G Fuel, and trash-talking mobile gamers. The only mention of the bathroom-incidents comes at the end of the recap, with Doc complaining about diarrhea. He then runs into the bathroom where the video cuts to a shot of him standing in a closed stall, with his head visible above the door.
Dr Disrespect has not discussed or apologized for the illegal live streams that resulted in his Twitch ban and expulsion from E3, though he seems unconcerned by the incident. On June 15, he shared some new Twitch emotes showing his head peeking over the top of the infamous bathroom stall. These emotes will likely get a lot of use when he inevitably returns to Twitch.
"He brings in a lot of following and a lot of money, but that's not quite the reason they would keep him," said streamer and developer CrankageGames. "It's more so that they don't want him to go elsewhere. They don't want him to go to Mixer. They don't want him to go to DLive. Because while they may not need the money, what they need even more than the money is keeping the money out of the competition's hands. They don't want those viewers—those millions of viewers—to go elsewhere and watch."
The last time Doc left Twitch for an extended period, it only propelled his career to greater heights. At the end of 2017, Dr Disrespect went on a Twitch hiatus after confessing that he had been unfaithful to his wife during a stream. When he returned almost two months later, he broke the record for most concurrent viewers of a single stream and pulled in thousands of dollars in donations.