Ashkan ‘TF Blade’ Homayouni, a popular League of Legends streamer from Iran, has been suspended by Twitch for 7 days for uttering the “N-word” on stream. TF Blade had taken to Twitter and had put forward a defense saying that he didn’t do anything wrong.
https://twitter.com/tfblade/status/1120754447662055425
A Riot employee had tried to defend TF Blade on Twitter as well, saying the word pronounced was “idiot”. TF Blade isn’t a native English speaker, so that does make sense.
Regarding @tfblade's ban, I'd hypothesize some degree of priming could have had an effect.
Watch the clip after I say "idiots" a bunch. I think you're (1) more likely to hear "idiots" and (2) if you already heard it before, you'll hear it more clearly.@Twitch @TwitchSupport pic.twitter.com/W29DIDWhP7
— blau (@blaustoise) April 24, 2019
Other streamers like Hammoudi ‘Moe’ ‘Yassuo’ have also come out in defense.
@TwitchSupport are you guys retarded
— Moe (@Yassuo) April 24, 2019
The League of Legends Reddit community is in an uproar, with some people openly supporting TF Blade, while others trying to deflect the blame, going as far as attacking female streamers instead. Former League of Legends professional player Christian ‘IWillDominate’ Rivera has been seen to engage in some of these attacks.
Actually such a blatant abuse of power… really ironic the shit that they let pass for streamers in different categories
— Christian Rivera (@IWDominate) April 24, 2019
Twitch has officially cut the initial one month ban handed to TF Blade down to 7 days after the uproar, though they have not made a public statement about the ban yet.