Twitch Streamer Hasan Suspended From Twitch After Bullshit Copyright Strike From Rightwing Organization

from the so-much-for-free-speech dept

It’s beginning to get quite comical watching various rightwing folks and groups bang on constantly about how pro-free-speech they are, often talking about situations that have nothing to do with free speech, only to engage in anti-speech behavior themselves. The new owner of a mountain of debt that is called Twitter has become something of an emblem for this sort of thing, shouting into the void about free speech only to turn on his heel the moment he gets an ounce of criticism.

The point is these people are largely nothing but hypocrites at best or folks completely without understanding for what free speech is, does, and means at worst. And because this sort of thing is contagious, we’ve begun to see this hypocrisy propagate throughout a certain wing of the political spectrum in America.

Meet Hasan, a rather well known streamer on Twitch. Hasan was recently suspended from using his Twitch channel over a copyright strike that, well…

According to this email, it states that the person who issued the copyright strike is from Censored TV, a right-leaning video platform that recently interviewed Kanye West. The specific person the claim came from is Censored TV CTO Ray Aguilar, who claims he’s struck Hasan’s Twitch account as one of Censored TV’s videos featured in his latest stream.

Of course, Hasan has criticized the decision via his personal Twitch account, as he believes the copyright strike was issued to silence criticism of the far right. In a tweet earlier today, Hasan claims that Aguilar is using Twitch’s copyright system to “takedown someone covering and criticizing their silly ideas” and labels the move “absolutely pathetic.”

So, what’s going on here? Well, Hasan hosted a Twitch stream in which he covered a variety of topics, most of them political in nature. As part of the stream, he played the Ye interview from Censored TV — oh, the goddamned irony — and then built upon it with commentary. And if that sounds like something very specific to you, that something would be fair use.

Do the Censored TV folks know about fair use? They certainly should. And, whatever your thoughts on that or your political leanings, stuff like this should make your blood boil.

Not exactly the commitment to free speech that’s been espoused when you’re laughing about getting perfectly protected speech chopped down with a fraudulent copyright claim.

And so you should keep this sort of thing in mind when you encounter anyone, regardless of political leanings, claiming to want something dumb, horrible, or otherwise undesirable on private internet platforms in the name of free speech. Some of us actually keep to that committment.

These clowns do not.

Filed Under: dmca, fair use, free speech, hasan, ray aguilar

Companies: censored tv, twitch