Chess GM Hikaru Nakamura banned on Twitch for watching Dr Disrespect on stream
Popular Twitch chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura has been banned on Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform has yet to confirm the reason for the ban. The Grandmaster, however, speculated that he was banned from the purple platform for watching Dr Disrespect on stream.
Nakamura’s Twitch handle, GMHikaru, was given a three-day suspension. The five-time United States champion wrote a tweet shortly after the banning of his account, which seemingly confirm the reason for the suspension.
“The Doc tweeted that things are settled with twitch… guess he was wrong. See everyone in 3 days,” The once youngest American to earn the title of Grandmaster, at the age of 15 years and 79 days, said.
To be fair, his fans had tried to warn him that the purple platform would ban him but he decided to pay no heed to the warnings.
Twitch checkmate
The unexplained move by Twitch came after a stream on March 16 where the 2011 Tata Steel Chess Tournament champion watched Dr Disrespect having a game of chess against fellow YouTube streamer DrLupo. Dr Disrespect himself has been banned from Twitch since June 2020. Since then, no Twitch streamers have interacted with the 40-year-old on stream out of fear of being suspended from Twitch.
Dr Disrespect earlier said on March 10 that he had resolved all of his legal issues with Twitch. That being said, it appears that streamers on the platform still cannot watch, let alone play with, him on live streams or they will face the same fate Nakamura did.
“A lot of people ask, ‘do you know the reason?’ I do know the reason why now,” said the Doc. “I’ve known for months now, the reason why. I’ll just say this right now champs, there’s a reason why we’re suing the fuck out of Twitch.”
He then later on March 11 uploaded an image on Twitter, containing the words saying: “I have resolved my legal dispute with Twitch. No party admits to any wrongdoing.”
Dr Disrespect was banned from Twitch back in June 2020. He claimed he had never received any explanation behind the permanent suspension. Dr Disrespect had an exclusivity contract with the Amazon-owned platform. Following the incident, he threatened to open legal proceedings against Twitch and moved to YouTube Gaming.
“This channel is currently unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service,” is the message that appeared every time a Twitch user goes to access the Doc’s channel. It has been displayed on his account for 22 months.
Nakamura, who has represented the United States at five Chess Olympiads, was banned for the first time on the platform. The grandmaster created his Twitch account back in 2015 but started streaming regularly in late 2017.
He became popular on the platform after he played chess against xQc. He then received an additional popularity boost after he commentated on the first-ever Pogchamps event, a chess tournament for popular streamers. As of January 2022, Nakamura had a total of 1.4 million followers on his channel and had garnered a total of 154.8 million views.
