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Transphobic advert runs alongside Overwatch League stream

twitch

An undeniably anti-LGBTQ ad ran during last night’s Overwatch League match between the Seoul Dynasty and Florida Mayhem, some Twitch viewers in Australia were presented with an ad from an organization called Parents HQ. The video seeks to attack the existence of LGBT people as somehow a thing to “fight back against”. There are also attempts in the same ad to link LGBTQ activism to pedophilia in a quite.

The language in the ad paints a very biased picture of gender dysphoria and other issues LGBTQ people face. The fact that it seeks to paint the issue as intentional or somehow conspiratorial is particularly disgusting.

The video is targeted toward Australians, referencing MPs there as well as the country’s Safe Schools program, and was seemingly only being displayed in the country. It first came to our notice via Tim Colwill on Twitter. Blizzard and Twitch have both been made aware of the issue and have worked to correct it.

“Twitch does not allow nor support political advertising,” the company responded. “This slipped through our political ad filter due to a categorization error at the ad network level. We have since removed it.”

What this controversy shows is that there will be mistakes when it comes to automated filtering and moderation of content. Twitch and Blizzard will likely be conducting some form of review in the wake of these problems. Hopefully accidents like this won’t happen again and give attention to slimeballs like Parents HQ.

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