Shroud Defends Twitch Over Dr Disrespect Ban

Earlier this year, Dr Disrespect was mysteriously banned from Twitch. Although the streamer eventually returned to broadcast on YouTube, none of the Doc's fans have learned why he was banned in the first place. The debacle has caused many of the Doc's fans to show animosity towards Twitch, even on other streamer's feeds. During a recent stream, Shroud responded to a few concerned viewers who had questions surrounding Dr Disrespect's ban.

In recent months, Twitch has changed its rules to seemingly keep suspended streamers like Dr Disrespect from showing up in any Twitch streams. However, Shroud clarified that he is "pretty sure" he could still watch one of the Doc's videos on his stream, but he couldn't actually play with the banned streamer in a live setting. This seemingly contradicts Shroud's previous concerns regarding Rogue Company's new Dr. Disrespect-themed skin. At the time, Shroud thought that it was "tricky" to determine whether or not Twitch would even allow streamers to display a skin that looked like the Doc. It is possible that Shroud has received further confirmation since then, but he didn't specifically mention the Rogue Company skin this time.

Following this, another viewer chimed in to say that they thought the whole ban situation was "f***ing stupid." Shroud immediately responded, "I disagree ... You can't think a situation's stupid if you don't have the information. That makes no sense. At All."

Shroud further explained that he found it nearly impossible to form an opinion on Dr Disrespect's ban, because nobody outside of Twitch and possibly the Doc would know exactly what went down. Dr Disrespect, meanwhile, has maintained time and time again that Twitch didn't give him a reason for his ban. He told his fans that not knowing why he was banned has caused him to struggle with anxiety. However, in a more recent stream, the Doc hinted that he thought the ban was financially-motivated on Twitch's part. 

Shroud told his viewers that it's perfectly reasonable for the Doc's fans to be upset about the lack of information. He also conceded that the lack of info is likely to make people even more curious about the ban. With zero public reasoning for the ban, it's easy for fans and fellow streamers to "assume the worst."

Another one of Shroud's viewers reiterated that it's frustrating for Twitch to not tell fans why Dr Disrespect was banned in the first place. To this, Shroud said that if Twitch were to publicly disclose the reasons for one person's ban, then that could essentially open the floodgates and the platform would have to make public the circumstances behind every ban. Shroud said that he thought this was "probably not a good idea."

Shroud also doesn't seem to believe that the Doc never received a reason for his ban. "I'm sure he got a reason," Shroud said. "We didn't get a reason. You don't really need to inform everybody why ... It's between those two entities. Not us. Not us, at all. We don't have a right to know. Only the people involved do. That's how I see it anyway."

At this point, fans may never know exactly why Dr Disrespect was banned from Twitch. However, it's always helpful to see a new perspective on the situation, particularly from a high-profile streamer like Shroud.