Dear Everyone,

I would like to sincerely apologise to those that are uncomfortable with or offended by what happened on a recent stream of mine, and I would also like to clarify some things in light of that.

The team that sponsored my Costa Rica trip and I were playing some poker on stream at a hotel in San Jose as part of a tournament they had set up (also joined by Andy Milonakas). We had a lot of fun playing, and then I decided to see if I could find some women to join us at the table as spectators. I then walked around asking various hotel employees if they would like to do so, and they all politely declined as they were on duty working at the time, so, I ventured out of the hotel to see if I could find anyone else to ask to join the stream. The first people I ran into were two trans women that I had talked to the day before, and I asked if they would like to join us at the poker table. They asked to be paid US$20 each for their time.
Once we got to the hotel, we all sat down and had a bit of fun chatting. The two women stayed for about 20 minutes, I then paid them, and they thanked me and asked if I’d like them to stay a little longer. We then had a friendly parting of ways and I believe no harm at all was done unto any party involved.

My chat was not being moderated at the time, and I take full responsibility for that and regret that some of the comments made in the chat were unkind and insensitive. If you had watched the entire stream, or watch my streams in general, you’ll know that I frequently tell my chat to be kind to everyone I interact with, and that absolutely no harassment or hateful comments of any kind will be tolerated. Generally, my moderation team is fantastic and there are very few issues.
My intention that evening was to have a good time on stream and to create some good social content, it was most certainly not to exploit or single out these women for their profession nor for their gender. In hindsight, this was misguided and I should have foreseen how the situation might be perceived, and for that I apologize.

Let me say this, however, that I believe if I had said at the time that we should not include those women, or even ask them, simply because of their profession or gender identity, that the implication and perception of that effect would have certainly been worse and more exclusionary.

Immediately after my suspension I initiated an effort to widen the scope of my moderation team by bringing on a trans person as our newest moderator.

Again, I apologise to anyone I might have offended, as well as to Twitch staff.

Love you all and I’ll see you soon!

Knut

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