Twitch streamer Mason Venne banned for fourth time after alleged homophobic slur
Mason “mason” Venne. (Dreamhack)
Twitch has banned streamer and former professional Dota 2 player Mason “mason” Venne for allegedly using a homophobic slur on stream.
He was playing the popular Dota 2 and commented on a teammate’s item choice, saying “I think the Aghs is a pretty terrible choice.”
“Aghs” here refers to the item Aghanim’s Scepter in the game.
He followed this by saying he was “never a fan of the Aghs”, except his words got mixed up.
He immediately noted his mistake saying “I think I just said the F word… I didn’t mean to say that” with a grin.
Later he tweeted about his “accidental” usage of a “naughty word”, though there’s been no formal apology.
Fans had mixed views on whether the slur was accidental or not. Either way, Twitch swiftly banned him.
Many of his fans sympathised with Mason in the wake of the ban, with one saying: “As someone who streams and has a phonic disorder (Tourettes Syndrome) bans like this are absolutely atrocious and make me nervous whenever I stream or find myself struggling with my tics.”
Mason is appealing the ban, but if unsuccessful he’ll be off the platform for seven days.
Appealing my ban for accidental usage of naughty word!! 😀 if appeal not successful, it's a 7 day ban. So see you soon or see you in a week 😀 <3 for all no one's fault be the best you you can be ^.^
— mason (@masondota) April 13, 2021
This is the fourth time the streamer has been banned from the platform since 2019, when he left professional esports.
The first ban was for excessive racism in his stream chat. The second and third times were less clear, though ableist language was suspected.
Twitch has a three-strike rule before a perma-ban, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Mason. He’s also retained his Partner status despite these multiple bans.
Mason Venne rose to fame as a professional Dota 2 player and was best known for joining the Evil Geniuses team who finished third in The International 2014.
The International is an annual tournament hosted by the game’s developer, Valve.
Since 2019, he’s played instead on Twitch, amassing over 150,000 followers.
Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game from Valve played by millions. It’s huge in the esports scene and is very popular among Twitch streamers.
You can watch a video of the incident below.
