Earlier this week, information emerged about how the extremely popular streamer Dr Disrespect had his Twitch account suspended a little over four years ago for sending inappropriate messages to a minor., something that Dr Disrespect admitted the next day, just before he announced to his 4.7 million subscribers on YouTube that he was taking an "extended holiday". Now YouTube has also announced (thanks, IGN) that they have shut down the monetisation feature on Dr Disrespect's channel, meaning he can no longer earn money from his streaming.
YouTube themselves commented on the decision like this:
"We have suspended Dr Disrespect's channel from the YouTube Partner Program following serious allegations against the creator. This action means the channel is no longer able to monetize on YouTube."
Via Rolling Stone magazine, information has now also emerged via an anonymous Twitch employee who claims that, contrary to his own statement, Dr Disrespect was informed that the person he was sending inappropriate messages to was a minor, but still continued to write to her.
"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. There was no confusion."
Dr Disrespect's defence via X regarding the messages he sent four years ago was as follows:
"Were there Twitch Whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual."
In addition to YouTube's suspension, Dr Disrespect has been kicked out of his own development studio Midnight Society and lost his main sponsor Turtle Beach.