Streaming platform Twitch has banned several high-profile Arab streamers for a panel that took place at TwitchCon last month. The banned streamers include CapriSunnPapi, Fr0gan, Raffoulticket, DenimsTV, and Vio (who is not Arab), all of whom took part in a live-streamed panel during day two of TwitchCon San Diego where they placed popular Twitch personalities on a tier list of who could or couldn’t say “habibi,” the Arab word for “friend” or “beloved.”
The 30-day bans were handed out seemingly simultaneously and came after days of social media dialogue accusing several Arab and pro-Palestinian Twitch streamers of being antisemitic. A clip of Fr0gan saying that she “hoped” American soldiers got PTSD during a livestream was shared across X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit and commented on by YouTuber Ethan Klein and Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, aka Destiny.
On October 20, Fr0gan issued an apology on X, writing:
the us military has conducted some of the most horrific crimes against humanity in the modern era in countries such as iraq, afghanistan, syria, lebanon, and palestine my anger is directed at individuals who are currently championing these war crimes as if they “liberated” my people. it’s horrific and disgusting. the beginning of the clip was worded poorly and i do apologize for that. i go onto clarify in the clip that i do not mean “all” military, but specifically those with no remorse. what i said was out of frustration as they are currently bombing my family in the name of “liberation”. i realize that wishing people harm isn’t the best way to talk about these issues and that i could have talked about these topics in a more sensitive way.
However, it appears Fr0gan was not banned for what she said on her more recent stream but instead for the panel from September 21. During the panel in question, the streamers utilized a popular internet meme called a tier list, in which the top of the tier is the “best” or, in this case, the person for whom using “habibi” is most acceptable and the bottom was the least acceptable. At the TwitchCon panel, the tiers were labeled “Arab Coded, Asks Permission, Thinks It’s a Slur, and Loves Sabra,” a reference to Sabra Hummus, a popular brand of hummus manufactured in the United States. The VOD for the entire second day of TwitchCon (which was when the panel aired) has been removed from the GivePlz Twitch channel, which hosts all of the TwitchCon videos. The video is still available on the Ayyrabs YouTube page.
