“I recall that Dr Disrespect was made aware by the individual that they were underage during the conversation, after which he indicated that this was no problem and continued on,” the former employee says. “There was no confusion. Messages sent after this was acknowledged were no less graphic and in sexually explicit nature than before, and I think more than the categorization of ‘leaning too much in the direction of being inappropriate’ might indicate.”
I am willing to believe the accusations, but I won’t take the word of people who tried to weasel out of his contract termination fees.
If they had evidence of sexting in 2017 then why didn’t they report it to the police? Why quietly ban him in 2020?
Seems to me like they had monetary incentive to remove the Doc.
Because what he did wasn’t illegal. It was just wrong. They didn’t want anything to do with him any more, but he didn’t break the law and so they couldn’t use that part of the contract to terminate it.
They felt it was so wrong that they paid him $20mil to break that contract. They absolutely would have taken another option if it was viable.
I’m not defending any potential actions he took, but:
There are laws about sexting minors, so if he had done that then he would have broken it and they would have plenty of evidence of that.
If nobody above 18 is morally justified to be in a chat with anybody under 18 then we’ve got some serious societal level issues to fix.
EDIT: And btw they tried to get out of paying him 20M, but realized they had no grounds to do so when he started his lawsuit. They had incentive, here. They wanted to not pay him.
There are things that you shouldn’t do or say to minors that aren’t illegal, but anyone reading them would still know it’s it’s unethical/wrong/immoral/whatever. They clearly thought he crossed that line, enough that they’d rather fire him and take a chance on losing the court case for damages for breaking the contract. And then they lost that court case.
It clearly wasn’t just “a chat with a minor”. The rumors I’ve heard is that he was attempting to make plans to meet up with them at a convention. That would definitely be in the “big no no” category for a celebrity talking to a minor, even if nothing untoward was suggested in that conversation.
But rumours are just that, at the end of the day.
It wasn’t reported until 2020. They were sent in 2017.
That’s how it usually goes. Weirdo does thing. Weirdo gets big and thing comes to light.
Weirdo gets dropped.
Weirdos defend weirdo.
Fans hearts get broken and denial sets in.
I would be very surprised if an 3 year statute of limitations were somehow involved in all of this. And I’m not defending the Doc’s actions or statements, I AM saying “we don’t know.” Because we don’t.
There is a sizeable gap between “beyond a reasonable doubt” in terms of a very specific law, and things that are gross/immoral.
People keep questioning the timeline as a defense… They might not have known until 2020. It’s normally against internal company policies to just look through people’s DMs. It’s not like someone’s job is to rifle through them. They probably were made aware of it, and then took action.
That’s speculation on my part, but if Twitch sat on it for 3 years, shame on them too, but that doesn’t so shit for this guy. It was still not ok.
The monetary incentive was to pay out his contract so they didn’t have a VERY public story about a VERY high profile streamer inappropriately messaging a minor with their service. That could be super damaging for Twitch. So they likely paid it out to try and bury the story.
It doesn’t seem like such a large gap or grey area to me. You can tell a woman “Nice T-Shirt” and that is fine but “Nice Tits” is not fine, it’s a pretty clear division to me. What could the Doc say that would qualify him as the monster people are calling him but also not illegal?
They attempted to not pay out his contract btw. He had to sue them to get that, and they payed it out. If they had evidence of such behavior from him then I’m sure courts would agree that his own actions destroying his own public image would have been more than enough reason to cancel the contract.
I see you have access to what was said then. At least… I assume you do to try and split hairs defending a man who has admitted to inappropriately messaging a minor
The fuck? Where did I defend him?
I’m just dismissing delusions and mass hysteria by presenting what we do know versus what we don’t. I don’t NEED access to what was said, my entire statement is that we don’t know what was said.
He literally tweeted admitting it though…
He never tweeted that he “sexted a minor.”
Link to HIS TWEET
Now, I personally pretty regularly say a lot of shit that can be considered “inappropriate,” but that does not equate to sexual on its own. I’m interested in seeing how this story develops, but it seems most people have already made up their minds and branded him a criminal.
If you’re a 40 y/o texting “inappropriate” things to a minor, you should have your twitch contract cancelled too.
If you’re a 40 y/o entertainer using your exclusive platform’s built in chat to engage with your fans and audience without a filter, you haven’t done anything wrong. What do you call inappropriate? Using the word ass, either figuratively or literally? Talking about hemorrhoids? Religion? Marijuana? There really is no information to work with here, and Doc couldn’t provide it even if he wanted to.
This isn’t a case of a streamer talking to a viewer through chat. This is a case of an adult private messaging with a minor in a self admittedly “inappropriate” manner. Doc might have said after the fact that he didn’t “intend” on following through with his messages, but when an adult, even jokingly, is making plans to meet up with a fan at a convention who is a minor, that’s a BIG red flag.
Twitch had no choice but to ban him. What if they did nothing and he did end up meeting up with them? What if it turned into SA allegations and it was found out that Twitch was aware of this? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want my kids talking to an adult over private messages full stop. Let alone if the content was “inappropriate”.
“Leaning inappropriate”. And it was through Twitch’s message system. Also no confirmation on a meetup, that is hearsay, but hypothetically if Doc said he would be at a convention in character that itself isn’t a red flag. Markiplier meets kids at conventions all the time, gets autograph lines out the doors.
Twitch already “did nothing”. The supposed chat logs were from 3 years before his ban.