The US armed forces’ Twitch channels can’t seem to stay away from controversy at the moment. Ever since the US Army started banning users asking about war crimes in chat, its presence on Twitch has been placed under the microscope. Now, that scrutiny has been intensified after one serviceman was caught streaming Among Us with inappropriate player names.
Observers first noticed the issue when an emergency meeting was called in-game during the stream, which took place on September 12. Two players had the handles ‘Nagasaki’ and ‘Japan 1945,’ references to the atomic bombs that were dropped on two Japanese cities at the end of World War Two. If that wasn’t enough, a third player using the black crewmate skin had the tag ‘Gamer Word,’ a phrase often used to replace the N-word online.
It’s unclear if the players with the offensive names were serving members of the US Navy, but they were “close friends” of the streamer and played with him for about an hour.
Plus, the streamer was clearly aware of the situation. In a clip shared by journalist Jordan Uhl, the streamer tries to prompt the crewmate in casting his vote, saying: “We’re just waiting on you – uh – individual.” This prompts laughter from the streamer’s group, while another jokes “don’t say his name, don’t say it”.
According to InvenGlobal, the streamer could not see the chat during the stream, and instead had a friend moderate it. When people began calling out their behaviour, the moderator reportedly replied: “See chat, one thing you don’t understand is that this is a numbers game and you guys are just helping us with the numbers.”
It’s unknown if Twitch will take action on the channel, but it leaves a sour taste in the mouth of many, especially after the existence of the channels were recently challenged by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the US Army’s esports team was recently called a “pipe dream” by an insider.
The US Army has been contacted for a comment. We’ll update the story if we hear anything.
